It's been far from quiet

View from Lago Laux

Summer is in full swing after much weird weather that not only have I been commenting on but seems like everyone else has been too. It also seems like it is not just only here but most of Europe is having very extreme weather. The weather seems to be a bit more settled and we're now having some hot and sunny days at the moment. Time is wasting, so let's get out an see a few things around our Italian alps here in Val Chisone.
We've had a wide assortment of guests lately doing quite a variety of interesting things in addition to the high level walking and flower spotting going on. We've had guests who have come here to find their roots and distant relatives in the small historic Valdesain (Waldensen) village of San Germano just down the road. With Fabrizio knowing everyone in the valley, they got to explore and share their family's history with us and a lot of interested local folks. It made for some interesting conversations and discoveries about our neighborhood.

Charming Usseaux  street. 

Usseaux Doorway

Historical pagaent  at the Fenetrelle Fortress 

We also got to spend some time with James Martin of Europe for Visitors and Martha Bakerjian of Italy for Visitors, both sites part of the very informative About.com site, showing them around our neck of Piemonte and enjoying what we usually send everyone else off to do. We missed Fenestrelle Fortress Battle Reenactment by a week, but it is always still an impressive site to stop and have a look at, even if you don't do the almost 4,000 steps to the top.I've come across the About.com web site a number of ways when searching for a variety of information. If you're not familiar with it I highly recommend it as it is a wealth of information on a very broad range of subjects, recipes of many cuisines, travel sites for just about anywhere in the world, computer and web help and tutorials, just to name a very few of the extensive resources available there. I "met " James when I commented on one of his blogs leading up to the Olympics and then discovered his Europe for Visitors site which has a lot of useful information later. Since I knew he had covered the 2006 Winter Olympics from Torino, I invited him to visit our Olympic valleys during the summer to see what else we have to offer.
Much to my delight, I got to meet these very knowledgeable travel writers when they stayed with us last week and did a bit of exploring here in our undiscovered alps. James very kindly added us to his recommended list of accommodation in Italy, (thank you very much) and Martha wrote about the Piemonte region and our wonderful cuisine and wine. We enjoyed their visit and we always enjoy visiting around in our valley and visiting a number of other things that I couldn't cram into one article again, so it'll have to wait for another time.
But in closing, I just have to share this invaluable tip that James gave me about pushing more traffic on to my site. The photo below from the village of Usseaux, known for it's traditional murals painted and scattered through out this tiny traditional village presented itself as an excellent opportunity for me to to add it to my blog and label it as it reads below. You can only imagine there will be loads of people searching for " Naked Man and Woman."
Thank you James and Martha. We hope to see you up our way again sometime soon.

Naked Man and Woman Mural in Usseaux