Your day at-a-glance

 

 

In the antique stube of your hotel, breakfast includes muesli, homemade jams and preserves, yogurt, platters of meats and cheeses, warm cornetto pastries, and omelets with the local speck, a smoky ham flavored with juniper. Afterwards, your group boards the ski bus to Passo Lavaze, set on a Dolomite plateau. There are 15 different pistes, and you start out with three other skiers on a track that promises panoramic views. Over cappuccino at a trail side refuge, some fellow travelers report that they found an old monastery on one of the trails, so you head back out to explore it for yourself.

11am-3pm in Banff, Canada

There are many trailheads right in Banff, and today you join your Trip Leader on a gentle descent through spruce forests along the Bow River at the base of jagged Mount Edith. A hot beverage and snack await you at the canyon picnic grounds, then it’s a short run back via the Spray Valley Trail. Back in town, your group gathers for lunch at a local grill. Then, you have free time to shop in the trendy boutiques, or maybe learn about Banff’s original inhabitants at the Buffalo Nations Museum. Before shuttling back to the hotel we stop at the Banff Hot Springs to soak in the natural hot mineral pools, with spectacular views of the Rockies. 

After skiing and exploring the Olympic Center, it’s time to come indoors for a Slovenian cooking class. As we learn to make strujkli, a rolled dough filled with savory cheese and cream, local friends come to tell us the story of Kekec, a fictional children’s book hero who’s become a Slovenian national icon. Not to worry if this bedtime story makes you sleepy… There’s still time for a nap before tonight’s dinner.

Tonight, we enjoy a pre-dinner stroll to our restaurant for a delicious East Tyrolean dinner–perhaps roast lamb, or fresh trout. Leave some room because afterwards, we enjoy a traditional torch walk on snowy paths, stopping along the way to sample grilled bratwurst and gluhwein, a hot spiced wine. The torchlight leads to Luigi’s Pub, for some local beer and music. Riding back to our hotel, moonlight shimmers on the peaks of the Carnic Alps, and your down feather bed beckons….