Barbaresco

We decided to return from  Switzerland with a stop in the Barbaresco wine area. Lunch, we decided, should be in Laglio on Lake Como....

in hopes of running into George Clooney, who has a lakeside home there! ( Supposedly he likes to dip in the lake with fellow actors/actresses and we were hoping!!!) Needless to say we did not see him!  But probably went past his home!

We had lunch at the restaurant La Locande del Cantiere which may have been fairly close by!

It was fine for lunch but their photographs of their location relative to the lake leads one to believe that they are overlooking it! They are....... but the main lakeside road is in between!!! No problem... we enjoyed our lunch there!
Then on to our hotel near Barbaresco, after a brief stop in Asti ( which was OK.. we didn't feel we were missing anything by not staying longer!!).
We chose this particular hotel because we have had Barbaresco wines in the past and have liked them! Knew nothing really about the area!
Al Vecchio Tre Stelle  was more a roadside inn with rooms than a hotel in its own right!!

 However we were very surprised and delighted to find that the food was wonderful!  The dining room was completely full for dinner, almost all Italians! The bedroom was rather outdated, but had a certain charm!  And a fantastic view over the vineyards.

It was also very close to Alba where we had decided to spend a day...
They also own a boutique hotel in Alba, the Palazzo Finati which we might be tempted to try next time!

While in Alba we found that it had a surprising 'outlet'....... Missoni!!  I was delighted to find that it was open on a Sunday, but only because of the Donkey Palio(!) which was being held that day.

Before you go rushing off to Alba for Missoni! .....it was still very expensive!! But about a third of normal prices! And had definitely more choice for me than the Prada 'outlet' south of Florence! This seems to have become a size 2 and has a 'young girl' orientation! Some years ago I bought a lot there. This year nothing! However I had better luck at Missoni!! The people at Missoni, Alba were not too enthusiastic about the quality of the Missoni clothes now being marketed by Target!
We ate at a Michelin rated restaurant in Barbaresco the second night, the Ristorante Antine

 and wished we had stayed in the hotel!! It only had  people  at  3 of its tables...  and no-one was Italian!! And the food.... it was OK good, but not exceptional!  We definitely had better food on the prior night! And were annoyed with ourselves for not staying in for the second night!!Also we were definitely not too impressed as to how they handled the wine.  The red was only opened after a long time.... sitting there being watched (diligently!) by us!! And trying to catch their eye to open it!!And it wasn't as if they were exceptionally busy!! And we were in Barbaresco!!!
The local Enoteca for their wines was interesting!

They obviously decided they had one church too many and it would be more productive selling their wines!!

Palio degli Asini, Alba

The Donkey Palio is held the first Sunday of October each year in Alba and is very enjoyable to watch. Many of the donkeys are assigned only on the morning of the race to each rider....

so they don't have too much time to become acquainted with each other!  Which becomes obvious when the donkeys are unwilling to run! And show how stubborn they can be!

In fact many of them seem to want to get rid of their riders as soon as possible!

The judges........

sit in the middle of bales of hay....  and assign points!  For performance???

And the award at the end, the Palio, is given to the winner by the Medieval judges, the Bishop having by now totally fallen asleep!!

Alba's Medieval Festival

We chose to stay in the Alba/Barbaresco area because of its wine.  However quite unexpectedly we found that we were spending a weekend there when they were holding a medieval festival and a donkey palio! It is always held on the first Sunday of October, just after the wine week and before the truffle fair. October is obviously the time to visit Alba!!

Our first view, when we entered the square with the Duomo.....

Then we started seeing people in medieval dress.....

                            Who were throwing their flags in the air!  And catching them!

Wandering around the streets was fun, one never quite knew what would be around the corner!

We then found out that in the afternoon there would be an enactment of life in times gone by. Each ward were putting on a show and the best performance would win.

 One ward's celebration of time's gone by!

 And a more elaborate performance!

 And wine is to be revered!!

Vale La Pena..... or Its Worth It!!

 While in Alba (Piemonte, Italy) we came across a slightly different type of farmer's market. All produce came from land confiscated from the Mafia! This movement was started in Sicily but seems to have  spread to other parts of Italy. In Sicily one can stay in homes confiscated, which have been turned into Agriturismos, provided one doesn't mind the idea that there are probably still Mafia friends and family close by!!

It was a very colorful market!

With an emphasis on Truffles (Tartufi) as the annual Tartufi fair was being held the following weekend!
Alba is famous for its white truffles.

But had wonderful other produce!

And it was fun seeing people wandering around in medieval dress!!

Truffles 101!!

Alba is the place in Piemonte to try the white truffle. We weren't sure how it worked... all the menus displayed the price/gm of truffle so as we were eating on the ground floor of a 3 star Michelin restaurant Ristorante Piazza Duomo we decided this was the place to try!  I hasten to add... we were not in the 3 star part!
However La Piola was more to our taste for a lunch!

We decided to order dishes which suggested having fresh truffles with them. When the food arrived it was quickly followed by a truffle!! With a weighing scale!

A note was made on the placemat of its weight.

Then the truffle was shaved onto our dishes, until we said 'stop'!

Then the truffle was again weighed......

And the calculation was shown to us!

One doesn't want to have too much! The average cost was 3.50 to 7 euros a gramme!
And 28 euros was added to our bill!!

Was it worth it?? Maybe.......maybe not!  But it was interesting!!

Italian detour continued!! ( see last post!)

We left Roure, France, early morning to continue through the Mercantor park and continue on into Italy.
Again I had not done the proper research!  We needed to go over a fairly high pass! 2350 meters high to be precise!! Just above the ski resort Isola 2000!
En route we ran into a vintage car rally....... all going to the top of the pass!

When we reached the top  and crossed into Italy, we found out that our built-in trusty GPS system on our French Peugeot only covered France!! And we didn't even consider that possibility beforehand! So we suddenly got a blank screen right on the frontier! Panic set in!!!
At the beginning it was not a problem.

Nowhere else to go but down!

We obviously did not have any maps in the car, as we have given up on those years ago and our other SatNav (TomTom) systems include most of Europe! Lunch in Cuneo was possible only because we fortunately had a Michelin restaurant guide with us which had a map of the city. The Osteria della Chiocciola was very interesting and definitely worth a visit.

Our next stop was the Hotel Dogana Vecchia  in Turin. This was an old hotel ( with somewhat tired rooms!) and it's claim to fame was that Mozart had stayed there!

Interesting to try to find it, in a very confusing city without any guidance system!! And the hotel was in a pedestrian area! We managed to get just a few blocks from the hotel (by using the hotel's directions) but as we couldn't turn R where we were supposed to, it then took another hour to get back to the hotel (chosen because it had parking!!), and we had to be directed to it by the police! Lots of one way streets didn't help!
However because it was in the pedestrian centre it was great for seeing the rest of Turin!

And just around the corner from the hotel we were reminded of the US .......

We had an evening dinner at the restaurant  Vintage 1997....... which was great!

Our meal included a wonderful 'vitello tonnato' and introduced us to fabulous wines of the Piedmont area! Definitely a restaurant to be recommended! And I think we were the only non Italians there!!

Next morning we moved on to lunch at Lake Orta, and no,we weren't following the car rally!!

And spent the next night with a view over Lake Maggiore from our room in the Hotel Ancora! We would definitely recommend staying there and choosing a room with a view!!