It's been a week since Missy, Chris, Jenni and Tyler left and I'm just now catching my breath after our week with them! We packed so much fun into the 8 days they were here that some of it is blurry. (Although, the blurriness could also be blamed on the amount of wine consumed during those 8 days, too!)
They arrived on Saturday morning and after a whirlwind tour of Zurich and fondue dinner that night, we all set off for the Piedmont region of Italy. Piedmont is in northern Italy, near France and the main city is Torino where the Olympics were held in Winter 2006. This region is known for Fiat cars, "big" red wine, and the elusive white truffle. We focused our sight seeing on the wine and truffles.
We rented a villa house near Asti (home of Asti Spumanti) and spent 3 days driving through massively thick fog to vineyards and the ancient villages of Asti and Alba. We had a great time tasting wines, some straight out of the barrel, and eating WAY too much. All the restaurants in the region are like good Italian grandmas: They just keep bringing out plates of food and forcing you to eat until you are about to burst!
We did splurge to taste the famous white truffle at dinner our first night. Personally, I don't get the hype. It's a fungus. I understand they are hard to find (you need a dog or pig to root around the mud for the smell of them and to dig them out). I also understand that it's weird that no one knows how they form (they have no roots, spores or any sign of how they reproduce). But, still it's a fungus. Something from the mushroom family. Something that is seriously odiferous. The smell can knock your socks off half way down the street in Alba. But, much like caviar (which I also find foul) white truffles are an ultimate delicacy. 100 grams sells for around 500 Euros! We all paid 10 Euros each to just have some grated onto our pasta. 10 Euros for tiny slivers of fungus that, in my opinion, didn't taste that great. Chalk it up to an "experience". I wouldn't pay for it again, though! I guess I'm just not that sophisticated.
The wine, however, did live up to it's hype. Barolo wine is known as "the king of reds" and was unlike any merlot or cab or chianti. Even the table wine or "dolcetto" of the region was fantastic. 4 Euros can buy a really nice bottle of wine! We brought back a case and a few, but I really wish we had brought back more of the cheap wine. We could have stored it for a few years and would have some amazing wine in 5-10 years! Oh well. It's not likely we'd have the self-control to save it instead of drink it anyway.
Even though this wasn't a kid-type trip, our kids had fun. We started the trip off with a visit to Castlegrande in Bellinzona, Switzerland which they loved. They loved spending time with Missy, Chris, Jenni, and Tyler and were great sports about trailing behind us. They even made friends with some Italian kids at one of the wine shops and played with them a while. On our last day, we did something especially for them. Thanks to Scooby-Doo movies, our kids love mummies and Egypt so we took them to the Egyptian museum in Torino. This museum has the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts anywhere other than Egypt! Apparently, the Savoys (who ruled the region for many years) were big fans of Egypt so they bought up tons of artifacts and started a museum there. We saw lots of mummies and mini-sphinx statues and heiroglyphics. We could barely peel Aidan out of there. At one point when I was trying to hurry him along he said to me in a frustrated voice "Can you just give me a minute, I'm trying to read here!" I was happy to see how interested they both were in the museum.
Aside from the pea soup fog, we had another great trip! Here are a few pics from the 4 days:
Castlegrande in Bellinzona, Switzerland
Jason eating pasta with white truffles
Tasting wine straight out of the barrel wearing typical wine maker hats
Entering the village of Barolo
The Egyptian Museum in Torino
Candle dipping isn't a quick project! We had to dip 3 times, then go outside, dip the candle in cold water, dry it off, then go back to dipping. Repeat the process about 30 times! It took us about an hour to make our candles, but it was fun!
There were lots of different color wax to choose from. Lainey liked making a rainbow candle.
My work in progress
When we were done we could decorate our candle with carvings or adding bits and pieces. Aidan's from school turned out great (see first pic) but the rest of ours, that we tried to do ourselves, didn't turn out great. We should have left that part to the experts! 
Candle dipping isn't a quick project! We had to dip 3 times, then go outside, dip the candle in cold water, dry it off, then go back to dipping. Repeat the process about 30 times! It took us about an hour to make our candles, but it was fun!
There were lots of different color wax to choose from. Lainey liked making a rainbow candle.
My work in progress
When we were done we could decorate our candle with carvings or adding bits and pieces. Aidan's from school turned out great (see first pic) but the rest of ours, that we tried to do ourselves, didn't turn out great. We should have left that part to the experts! 
