First days in Italy ... no... France!

I arrived safely in milan, Jeremy and Bill M. picked me up at the airport in our sweeeet Opel minivan - a.k.a - LeFalconMillenium.
We had a nice 90 min drive to Sestriere, stopped at an autogrille where you get the best gas station paninni anywhere. I accidently ordered a beer (my italian needs help) but I dealt with it quite well.

We were booked at a big hotel in Sestriere - where they held some olympic events - and our hotel was closed. Nothing. Nobody. They had even faxed a confirmation weeks ago. I was like the hotel in the Shining. Anyway... since the whole town was a ghostown, we drove to France. About 1/2 hour to Briancon. Got a cheap hotel, had a great meal that started with Foies Gras en Trois Facons (Foies Gras Three Ways), progresses to Boef Three ways and ended with Chocolate Three Ways. All of it was amazing.

The next day we rode the col d'Izoard a.k.a the Cold de its_so_hard. Weather was perfect. The pass was supposed to be closed, but we got to the top and it was all clear, so we did a big loop to Guillestre and back around to Briancon. Of course we stopped for "sanweeech avec fromage et jambon". I got my dorky GPS out and I have the ride on Motionbased:



Next we are hoping to stay in France one more day and Ride the Alp D'huez, but the weather is crap so we may just transfer back to Italy. More details soon.

I will upload some pics once I connect my camera.