We went to the
Winter Olympics
was the theme for the
Torino 2006
Winter Olympic Games
This year we had the opportunity to attend the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy. It was an experience like no other. You can't even imagine what it is like and watching on TV can't even compare. If you ever get the chance to attend the Olympics, take advantage of it. You won't regret it. Our only regret was that we could not attend the entire two weeks. We arrived the day after the opening ceremonies and departed 5 days later. During that time we attended 11 events in 7 different sports - Snowboarding, Short Track, Curling, Speed Skating, Figure Skating, Nordic Combined, and Ice Hockey. We have included some of the pictures taken while we were there. You can enlarge the pictures by clicking on them.
Day 1
The trip to Torino was pretty much uneventful. We got a later
start than we had planned, around 10:15a and made a little side trip to
Strasbourg, France on the way down. We'd stopped at the Esso on Autobahn 5
to fill up before moving on. While we were there, we ran into a young
German couple trying to make their way to Strasbourg. We told them we
could take them part way, but found it easier for them to just take them to
Strasbourg. They really appreciated it and it wasn't much of a side track
at all. Only about 15 to 20 kms out the of the way.
We made our way out of Germany and into Switzerland. Our only delay, not much of a delay, was entering the 9 km tunnel on the way. It appears there may have been an accident in the tunnel and traffic was delayed entering. After a short wait we were on our way once again. The trip through the 17 km tunnel (Gotthard Tunnel) was a smooth one with very little traffic.
The rest of the trip through Switzerland was without delay. We made our way into Italy and were moving along just fine until about 100 kms from our destination. The Autostada we were traveling on was shut down and traffic diverted through the back roads. Slow driving. We finally reached our destination around 8:30p. At one point we began to worry because we arrived after night fall and when we arrived in the village, signs to the B&B pointed out into the dark woods. We thought this can't be right, but we kept driving and sure enough we finally arrived. So a trip that should have take about 7 hours took over 10 hours. Not to worry this was not going to disrupt our trip! Our destination was a Bed & Breakfast, Cascina Caldera, located in a small village named Cantarana. Our hostess, Carla was wonderful. She went out of her way to ensure our stay was a pleasant one, although we spent very little time in our room. The room was spacious with a private bath.