Travels in Italy

Annie O’Shea is traveling through Europe this winter as part of the Intercontinental Cup Circuit for Skeleton. See older posts from Annie, 12.10.2008 and 12.17.2008. She sent me a few photographs from her travels, see below. Or you can check them out on her blog. Annie always mentions the charm of European cities for their narrow streets and shops, and historic buildings as the norm.  She may not be a preservationist by training (skeleton is her thing), but she always recognizes what people appreciate about historic preservation. And isn’t that what we hope for – that people appreciate what we do and what we value?  Thanks for sharing your photos, Annie. Go USA!

Venice, Italy.

Road near Cortina, Italy.

Cesana, Italy. Location for races 5 and 6 of the Intercontinental Cup, Bobsled and Skeleton.

Annie with more snow than she's ever seen! Cesana, Italy.

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Lake Placid Olympic Complex

On Friday the 19th, the USA Skeleton team members on the Intercontinental Cup Circuit compete in Lake Placid, New York. Two weeks they were in Park City, as Annie O’Shea describes in her blog.  You, as spectator, could actually attend these races. The Lake Placid Olympic Sports Complex is not a gated community. It’s a tourist destination itself as well as being in a popular tourist region (the Adirondack Mountains).

The bobsled/luge/skeleton track at Lake Placid

A slider on the almost vertical track (here), moving past spectators as fast as a vehicle (or faster!)

These athletes compete on the bobsled/luge/skeleton track from the 1980 Olympics. The 1932 Olympic sliding track remains near the 1980 track, but technology has since advanced and it is no longer used in competition.  You can take a (modified) bobsled or luge ride down the 1980 track if you so desire (not during competition, obviously).  Or, if you like the ice, but not the speed, you can ice skate on the outside speed skating track (at your own pace).

Also in the Olympic Complex, you can see skiing, skating, the biathlon, and other winter events. There is a museum dedicated to the 1932 and 1980 Olympics. If you’re a hockey fan, the Herb Brooks Arena is open for skating and viewing (as in the 1980 USA Hockey Team, featured in the movie Miracle).  To hockey fans, this is an important part of history, even though it dates to 1980, far from our typical historic benchmark of 50 years. It’s interesting to consider whether we, in the present, are capable of discerning places, events, and people who will be just as important fifty years down the road.   

Snow covered Mirror Lake in Lake Placid, NY

Lake Placid provides a unique vacation in the Adirondacks with a lively historic downtown set on Mirror Lake and Olympians as your neighbors.

Good luck to Annie on Friday!  [Show your love of the red, white, and blue: Support Annie]

Annie, way back in 2005