I went up to the mountains with GP today.  He had to visit a client in a town called Pont San Martin in Aosta valley.  It's not very far up, only an hour from the city, but the Alps come upon you very quickly.  In fact this area isn't so much pretty as oppressive.  The mountains are very steep and rise straight up on either side of the valley with the towns in between.  While GP was working I took a walk in the town - very small - and started to wander up the hiking path that goes miles up into the mountains.  After 15 minutes I was exhausted and had to keep taking breaks.  Gotta work on my endurance.  These traditional houses are wood and stone with slate roofs.  I suppose the snow lips off the slate.  This is about half an hour from some of the ski areas and 40 minutes from the border with France.  In fact they speak both French and Italian. The pics below are from today.  Tomorrow the guys from Ikea are coming to install Grace's wardrobe, the one that fell on our head, the one that I said maybe we should follow the instructions and a certain engineer said no he could figure it out.  Finally she will be able to get her clothes off the floor and sofa and table...... xxoo me