Great pictures, Dick.

Your hotel looks very nice too. Maybe I should have a change and stay in Selva next time ...

Are you planning another trip?

A few more you and John might enjoy -

http://www.dolomitigallery.com/inverno/index.htm

Steve

http://www.dolomitimeteo.com/gallery/index15.htm

http://www.dolomitimeteo.com/gallery/index16.htm

http://dolomitesworld.com/background...olomites_1.asp

http://www.valgardena.it/en/val-gard...o/page120.html

OK! I cannot take it anymore. It is so beautiful! ALPS!!

Thanks Steve and Dick, I see we have taken over this thread! I think HAD might be on his/her way by now.

Dick: I have cut way back on my skiing over the years. Not for any real good reason. I hope to get up to Okemo this January, I also plan on going to Hunter next week for Demo days, I have to try those new "short boards" and turn in these 190's!!. Nice photo of you with the Brew by the way!

Steve: I might have missed this as this link has developed...but are you in ITALY??

Anyway,to free up this post and get back to HAL INFO, if you guys want to stay in touch 'off line' here is my travel email address: [email protected] drop me a line and I will keep it on file!

John

Steve, that's a beautiful night photo of Ortisei. May I ask you what kind of camera you used? We won't be in your beloved Dolomites this holiday season (we'll be skiing in the Tirol region as well as in Zell Am See/Kitzbuhel) but we will be in the area during Spring break (last 2 weeks of March).

Thanks.

you guys are making me drool! my husband and I are heading back to Selva for a second time at the end of January. I really hope the snow continues nicely until then. When we were there in 2007 there wasn't much snow (none in the valleys) but we still had a blast.

I hope HAD and her family are enjoying themselves.

Well, you are off tomorrow Hadeel - and I hope you and the rest of your family all have a wonderful time.

Please post when you get home and tell us how you get on, I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to hear how your trip works out.

I will be thinking of you next week, on the snow and in the mountains, while I still have to wait 2 months for my next 'fix'!!!

John - We ski Okemo a lot, so we should try to arrange a meeting there. I'll be in touch via the email you provided. (Not too late to join our group going to Grindelwald in February, by the way!).

PS - Definitely do the short ski thing. I've gone from 215s all the way down to 160. Never had so much fun.

Hadeel - Apologies for hijacking your thread! Hope you have a great holiday in Ortisei.

Dick

Hi Flyfish,

When are you in Grindelwald skiing? Maybe, if things work out, I could join you for one day. Mind you, I might be longer in an alpine restaurant nestled beautifully on the piste, drinking a Cafe Zwetchgen while sunbathing in my string bikini, than zipping down the slopes.

Hi schuler -

We arrive in Grindelwald on Saturday, Feb 28 and will be there for a week. Staying at Hotel Spinne - by all means look us up if that's when you're in town. We spend plenty of at the alpine restaurants as well (one of the things that makes skiing in Europe so much more enjoyable than here in the States, IMHO), though I haven't been able to fit into my string bikini for some years.

Plenty of "time", that is.

Sure would be nice if Fodors allowed us to edit out posts somehow.

Thanks for the dates, Flyfish.

I'll get back to you as soon as I've got my schedule figured out.

John - No, I'm in England (- near Bath). But right now I'm wishing I was in Val Gardena ...

Joy - The photo of Ortisei isn't mine (- I wish it was!). It's one of many on www.valgardena.it

Hadeel - I hope you enjoy this spectacularly beautiful area as much as we do. Do come back after your trip and tell us how it went. Have fun!

Steve

What's a perfect skiing day? I just had one today.

After a breakfast with waffles, I brought the kids to our local downhill ski area (3 min. drive). Then my husband and I walked to our local cross country trails (15 min. walk) where he skied skating style while I did a 7 km round of classic cross country skiing. The snow was fresh, crisp and the skies were blue.

We got the kids for lunch and then afterwards, we all went to the downhill ski runs for 3 hours of gorgeous skiing and a coffee with brandy at the ski hut before our last run down.

We had a beautiful sun set and now we are all tired and content.

Wishing you lots of days of skiing and weather perfection!

Hi everyone. We are in Venice now. Arrived Venice 7th at 5 pm, the apartment we rented is on the fifth floor, clean and in a perfect location, just few meters away from San Mark's square. Has two balconies. Spent 8th and today 9th visiting Churches and palaces and walking in Venice's lovely streets. The weather yesterday was sunny, today a bit cloudy, but we were lucky; no rain. No signs of any damages of the extremely high aqua alta. However, we think we might get an aqua alta tomorrow since a line of duckboards is set up in front of the Basilica and the Doge's Palace. Steve, as you said, the train/bus connection is the only available reasonably priced transportation to Cortina,so we will be taking that. This will be on the Thursday 11th. Will keep you posted with news about our trip as often as I can. So far: I love Venice. Let's see what happens when we get to Cortina. By the way, we found a little place in Bahrain that sells ski clothes, so we only need to buy gloves, socks, and hats. Do we need to buy special sunglasses? Thanks to all of you, thanks Steve.

Hi Hadeel:

Venice is a wonderful intro to Italy. Very unique.

Keep the posts comming if you can.

PS: You do not need special ski glasses, but you should have ski goggles! (not too dark lens...yellow works in most situations)

John

Hadeel - I hope it stopped snowing long enough for you to enjoy the Dolomites!

The last time they had so much snow in Ortisei before Xmas was 20 years ago ...

I hope you managed to get from Cortina to Val Gardena without problems.

Steve

I'm adding on to Steve's post:

Hope you had a great weekend on the pistes! Here in Switzerland, the winds were so strong this weekend that many lifts had to shut down. The winds were warm so our snow has began to melt a bit.

I don't have much time just to let you know that we are in Ortisei now, will be leaving tomorrow. The trip is succeful until now, only one day in Cortina that the lifts were closed but we managed to ski the next day since they opened only the baby lifts which we needed since it was our first ski lesson. Ortisei has good snow and we skied two days. Today we just visited the slopes since we were aching all over, we overdid it yesterday. Will tell you more when I can. Thanks guys.

By the way John we bought yellow lens goggles, and they are great.

Looking forward to hearing more, Hadeel. I hope the weather improved and you were able to enjoy the best of Val Gardena.

Steve

Hi Hadeel:

Great to hear from you!

Usually in December most resorts are begging for snow, you hit it right! But just like too little snow...too much snow has its own issues!

I hope you get at least some bright sunny, blue sky days. That will REALLY make the skiing easier and of course then you will get to see the beauty of the area!

I trust you found the Hotel Spa by now! Works wonders on those rarely used ski muscles! -)

As they say in Cortina: BUON NATALE!