Trip to the Alps!

As I mentioned yesterday, today is a holiday in Turin, for the feast of the city's patron saint, John the Baptist. Because of this, we got the day off from work, so Kristen and I decided to take a trip to the Alps, to a pair of small neighbor towns called Chatillon and Saint-Vincent.

You may deduce from the names of the towns that they are pretty close to the French border, which is correct. In fact, the signs in the town were in Italian, French, and English. Turin's location is conveniently close to France, and the trip to Chatillon was just two hours northwest of Turin on the regional train.

The towns are small - they are not touristy cities - but we're in the Alps, so of course there are some great views to see! The main areas of the towns lie in a valley, at the foot of the mountains.

Clearly, there is a difference in the scenery here as compared to a city like Turin, and I like it. Though I am curious as to what everyday life is like in a place like this. We stopped at a local café coming in and it seemed like everybody knew each other. Maybe they were confused having visitors like us in such a small town.

Kristen and I first wandered around town, not really knowing where we were going, and where we wanted to go. Fortunately, there were many, many great views. The bridge in the picture below dates back to the ancient Romans. I believe it was partially destroyed, but restored since then.

Beneath the bridge, and along the valley runs a river whose color is like nothing I've ever seen before.
Like I said, this town is not a haven for tourists, but it still does have its attractions, like this old chapel on top of a small hill.

The definite highlight of the trip was a climb up the mountain to visit a castle called Castello di Ussel. It is in a tiny mountainside farming community named Ussel and looks over the valley.

I'm not sure how high up this castle was, but it was quite a climb. I am pleased to announce that somehow I am in quite good physical shape and was able to make it up that portion of the mountain without hurting myself too badly.

Below is my favorite photo from the trip!

The castle is dwarfed by the sheer hugeness of the mountains, but was still high enough to give us some great views of the valley and towns below. You can see the superhighway that connects the larger cities in the area.

Interestingly, it seems like the castle is now used for exhibition space. When we stopped by, there was some kind of exhibition on comics. The interior of the castle was heavily modernized (and the ceiling must have been destroyed because it is completely new), and numerous posters were set up, including a bunch of Popeye.

Ever wonder what comics look like in other languages?

Fernando had been showing me a cool thing he could do in Photoshop Elements where he stitched together photos to make a panorama. At the hill on which the castle lied, I took a series of pictures, which Fernando blended together nicely to create this unbelievable view of the valley. You can click on the picture to see it in full size.

At the top of the castle was this awesome view - naturally the best one we got during the trip.

I took the above photo first with the camera aligned vertically. But then I realized it might make a nice desktop wallpaper, so I took it again with the camera aligned horizontally, then edited the heck out of it to produce this:

This picturesque view is now on my desktop, available for me to look at whenever I hit the "show desktop" key on my Mac.

At night, there were fireworks above the Po River for the feast of Saint John the Baptist. There were tons of people... I think it may have even been more crowded than the 4th of July celebration in Boston. We got there somewhat late, but it was a nice celebration and a nice day to have off.