Prato

Jan and I had a lovely weekend in Prato, Italy.  We rented a car and drove 4 hours and finally got to be directly in the middle of the mountains.  We'd been on the outskirts before but driving in them and seeing them all around us was our goal.  We stayed two nights in a hotel and had a great time relaxing.  On Saturday we took a day trip to Bozen (Bolzano), Italy where Jan's brother Christoph had studied.  What a beautiful town!  For lunch we bought some things at a local grocery store and drove into the mountains to find the perfect picnic location.  We did end up eating in the car since it was so cold but got to enjoy the breathtaking scenery all around us.  

On Sunday we decided to take the long way back through the mountains.  We've decided 2 things about GPS systems... they are good and bad.  Our lack of experience with them obviously did not help though.  We really enjoyed having one in the car and found it quite helpful but missed holding a real map in our hands to get the big picture.  We told the GPS that we wanted a route without tolls (on the way to Prato we took the toll road and ended up going through the longest tunnel both of us had ever been in... 15 km!).  Instead of a toll route, the GPS took us to a place where we were going to have to load our car onto a train and take a 20 minute ride for 40 franks!  That was worse than the toll road, financially speaking.  

We didn't take the car/train but found another route that took us in a large circle and eventually took us on the same road we'd taken on our way down.  The scenery we took in on our long detoured loop was well worth it though and so much fun!  Next time we take the GPS and a map.  :)

This is one of the villages we encountered on our detour.