OrangeTomato: Cortina to Venice to Sestriere

After we left Cortina, we drove 2 hours south-ish toward Venice. One of the girls at the hotel had recommended that we take the via-Venice route to Turin, rather than the route typically taken via Milan. This peaked our interest, as truly, if a person didn't know better, wouldn't he or she think Venice was MUCH farther to the south? We certainly did...

Nope, Venice is quite far north. It would be wet and cold, but now that we knew it was so close, how could we say no???

We drove to the outskirts of town, and parked in a (very overpriced!!!) parking garage, from whence we could walk into the city over a bridge. The parking garage had a 10 story ramp that made me dizzy.

Here's Annie & Caleb on said bridge:

Another view of the edge of the city:

I didn't get a lot of pictures, since we didn't have much time. The girl had also advised us to make sure to eat "pasta with food from the sea" so we were really looking for a restaurant. Finding one, we had the BEST. SEAFOOD PASTA. EVER.

Seriously, it was amazing. I should have taken a picture. But, I didn't. We did get a picture of the pigeon that was cooing all through our meal by the window of the restaurant - he was SO loud that we kept thinking it was indoors!

We did some quick shopping (I found some awesome gifts for my neices!), and then ran back to the car as the sky opened up. Umbrellas popped up all around us...

We'd parked so close (by necessity) to the cars next to us that Annie could barely get back in the car.

The rain on the windows.

This should have been a warning. The drive went from this:

To this:

Thankfully, there were miles and miles of tunnels to provide a break from the snow and fog. Some were well over 5 kilometers long and there were dozens of them! This shot is attempting to show one of the curvier tunnels (nope, they weren't straight!).

Annie caught up on some sleep.

We saw the signs for Cesana (well, for Turino, but our destination was only one more hour after that.

The last 2 hours of the drive, Caleb was gripped, staring into the fog like an obsessed man, keeping us on the road and still - miracle of miracles - on time for dinner. With 5 minutes to spare. And enjoyed yet another 5-course meal.

Since we arrived in the dark, those are all the pictures from this segment. Enjoy!