France : Mountaineering in the Ecrins

I had the opportunity to go mountaineering  for the first time  with the Belgian Alpine Club. We went to the region of the Ecrins near Briançon in the small village of Vallouise. We stayed at the gite "Le Baouti" (http://www.gite-le-baouti.com/) for the week and I would recommend it as a base camp to explore the region.

After learning the basics we went on the first day to La Meije (La Grave) where we climbed the "Col of Ruillans" (3200m). We cheated a little bit though because we took a cable car for most part of the climb.

On the next day we went to the refuge of the "Glacier Blanc" (http://clubalpin.briancon.free.fr/glacierblanc.html) at 2500m and did some basics in working in group in the mountain. The day after we went on top of  "Pic du Glacier d'Arsine (3364m)" and went back down.

On Thursday we went a via ferrata just outside of Vallouise en went to visit the beautiful city of Briançon.

On the last days we went up to the refuge of the "Bans" to be able to leave early on the next morning to climb our last summit the "Point of Red Beefs (3516m)".

Italy : City trip in the city of canals

We had the opportunity to go to Venice with our wedding photographer (http://www.creative-light.be/uk/mariage/mariage.php) and next to running all around the place dressed in bride and groom we had time to visit :-).

First we checked in at our hotel, Hotel San Carlo in Mestre (http://www.sancarlovenice.com/en/index.html). We decided to go to Mestre as hotels in the city of Venice itself are really expensive. The hotel was alright, the rooms were clean and not to noisy. We didn't spent too much time in the hotel anyway. The hotel is a 5 minutes walk from the bus stop. The bus is a 20 mins ride to Venice. Quick and easy!

I must say that Venice is worth its reputation, it's just wonderful walking around to experience this unique atmosphere. Even though it was the first weekend of July we never felt oppressed by the crowd. You will like this city sitting in the shade with an ice-cream as much as during the night wandering in the narrow streets.

It's really easy to travel around the city. There are Vaporetto's stop along all major canals. However, even though the gondolas are beautiful and are part of the city's history I found it quite expensive as it's 100€ for about 45mins.

On our last day we decided to visit the small islands of Murano and Burano which are easily reachable with Vaporetto's. Both are worth a visit but my preference would go to the second one with it's narrow streets and beautiful painted houses. All these houses had a different color in order to help the fisherman's to recognize their house when coming from the sea.