Last weekend I went to a ski facility which is 2 and a half hours away from my house, called Corno alle Scale and is really near to the border between Emilia Romagna, the region in which I live, and Tuscany.

I always got asked from other people if I prefer more the mountain or the sea. It seems like one of those phrases that you could hear in movies: "In this world there are two types of men, those who like the sea and those who like the mountain".
I don't like people that see the world as black and white, in my opinion life is beautiful because it has a lot of shades.
I live in a city near the sea, and I really enjoy summer for this reason, but I also like to go on trekking and with the bike on mountains. Our world is amazing because it is so various and reach of different places, so focusing only on some parts of it would be a real waste.

Early wake up

As I was saying before, the ski facility isn't so close to my house, and so I had to wake up really early in the morning in order to be at the destination for the opening at 9.00.
I had an appointment with a friend of mine in Bologna at 7.30 to have breakfast and then from there we went straight to Corno alle Scale.

The panorama through the road was really amazing. We were lucky enough that it was a really beautiful day (at least in the morning) and so we also stopped in order to take some photos.

We left my car a little bit far from the ingress of the facility, since the road was really steep and I was worried about the fact that I didn't have the chains with me (and this will be a very important detail at the end of the day, so keep it in mind).

We took our skipass (which was a lot cheaper since this was the opening week of the facility) and then we also rented the skis, the boots, the helmet and the poles.

Now I would like to explain to you our levels as skiers. For my friend this was actually the first time, but he has a lot of experience with snowboarding and sports in general. So for him it was not so difficult to get comfortable in the skis in a short time.

Surpassing your own fears

For me this was actually the second time that I skied, so my experience was really limited and on top of that, the first time I had a sort of shocking situation.
I went with some friends of mine for a three day holiday in the Dolomiti, a really amazing place with a lot of ski facilities. The first two days were really great, and thanks to the tips and help of my friends I also learned some skills (at the end of the day I was able to descend from a red track without falling even one time 💪).
So the third and final day I was really confident in my skills and I was at the top of the track ready to start descending. The night before, there was a strong snowfall, and so the ski run was covered in fresh snow. I didn't know that the sensation of skiing on fresh snow with respect to beaten snow is completely different. So as soon as I had to make my first turn, I completely lost control of the skis and I started going towards what I thought it was a precipice (now that I think back I have no idea why I thought that in a sky facility there should have been a not signaled and protected precipice, but you know, when you are scared the brain doesn't work so well). So, I tried to stop myself, but in doing so I twisted my left knee in a really bad way and I felt a strong pain. My friends took me to the hospital and there I did the x-rays discovering luckily that I didn't break nothing, but still I had to keep an orthopedic brace for almost 4 months.

So, you can understand how I was really scared while starting to descend. But this was only a matter of seconds, since the worries and fears disappeared immediately as I started realizing again how much fun it is to ski.

We also took a small break to recharge our batteries halfway through the day, with a Bombardino . What??? You don't know what a Bombardino is? Only because it is you, here it is an explanation.

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Next time you come to Italy to ski, you must absolutely try it!!!

After lunch we headed back again on the slopes, and while we were skiing, the weather suddenly changed.
It went from this:

to this:

A complicated homecoming

We finished skiing at 16.30 and after giving back the equipment, we headed back to my car to go home. But there we saw that something had happened since there were two cars of the local police. We asked them what was going on and they told us that due to ice present on the road, two drivers (that probably didn't have neither chains nor thermal wheel) had lost control of their vehicle and now the road was blocked. So we couldn't basically move from there until they had removed the cars, since there was no other road to go away from there.
We waited in a local bar for like three hours 😅, and then we slowly started descending from the mountain. Now, due to the fact that it was night and the sun was gone from lots of hours, the temperatures were very low and there was even more ice on the road. So, to only make a few km it took us like 1 hour, since the cars in front of us, worried about the conditions of the road, were proceeding really slow.

Lastly we were able to finally descend from the mountain, and from there in an other 2 hours I was finally able to come back home.

Conclusion

I am really glad that I was able to ski again after I almost broke my knee two years ago. I had a great day, made a lot of nice experience and overcome my fears. Now I can't wait for the next time that I will be able to ski again (and this will probably happen really soon, since I believe that also this week end I will be going ⛷️).