September 23, 2024–
This B&B in Piemonte is FABULOUS! The decoration is artistic, the amenities are fantastic, the landscape is incredible, and our hosts are like Family! We are way up high on what people here call a hill, but it sure seems way taller than just a hill! The area surrounding us is forested, but nearby we have the UNESCO langhe (neat, hillside rows or vines) that produce much of the world’s best wine. Some vineyards also grow hazelnut trees/bushes, most of which, I hear, go straight to Ferrero for the production of Nutella! Our hosts are artistic, and they are nature and animal lovers. They have made the decision to forego a TV set in our living area (although the wiring is all there), and even internet is S—-l—-o—-w—-! They want their guests to unplug, unwind, and connect with nature and each other. Our hosts live in a separate part of this house. The B&B part used to be their children’s rooms, but now they’ve grown and moved away.
Breakfast is provided by our hosts in their dining room! Today’s breakfast? OMGosh! Everything was homemade by our hosts or locally sourced. We had roasted chestnuts, hazelnuts, bonnet (pronounced bow-nay) with crunchy amaretto cookies, Robiola cheese with honey, grape/peach/banana fresh fruit skewers, like egg-in-the-hole-with-bacon-pesto-sauce toasts, red-orange juice from Sicily, raw carrots, home-made sweets we could not even get to this morning—we were just too full! There was coconut or regular yogurt for the taking…. Coffee with milk…. Some sort of white part from slices of bread, no crust, rounded, pressed, pinched, stuffed with traditional chocolate fondant, (common in this area), water….Wonderful conversation with the hosts, including an exchange of family pictures, and so on. Just incredible!
This morning was rainy, but we took off toward Alba, anyway. Our host lent us his umbrella for today. Driving through Boglietto near Asti and Alba, we SMELLED WINE! We arrived in Alba, Piemonte, Italy. Ferrero (as in Ferrero-Rocher/Nutella…) is HUGE—a HUGE campus! Tour buses could be seen parked across the main reception door parking lot. Lots of tourists were crossing the street toward the facility. The docks were humming, with trucks perhaps loading to bring Nutella to the world—or maybe they were bringing ingredients from the world to Nutella! I walked all around the exterior of a large part of the plant. I could see a bright yellow, and a bright pink house, just across the street from the plant. I could SMELL CHOCOLATE! If I lived in one of those houses, we would smell chocolate all the time! NOT,BAD!!
We drove to the top of the hill to Alba’s historic center. The city is known for its many towers. We visited the Church of the Maddalena, the Cathedral, and the Church of San Giovanni Battista. All had towers of their own!
The town is also known for the Alba white truffle (tartufo bianco). It is a mushroom-of-sorts that grows under ground, and trained dogs and trained people go hunting for these late at night. When they find one, they carefully dig it up, being careful not to destroy the growing site for other white truffles to grow. By law, the hunt cannot begin before October 1. Then, throughout October and November (I believe), Alba celebrates this truffle with an international white truffle festival. These white truffles are cooked with all sorts of foods, or they can be eaten raw. Evidently, they are extremely expensive! We toured the MNDET, aka Il Museo del Tartufo di Alba to better understand the significance of this “mushroom.”
The rain cleared, and the sun emerged. We sought a restaurant open on Mondays on the way back to the B&B in Montabone. We saw the beautiful langhe, UNESCO vineyards, neatly arranged along the mountainsides, and we saw the hazelnut trees. We ate in Nizza (Piemonte) at our host’s suggestions. We shared an appetizer, and we each had a Primo Piatto (first dish) of homemade pasta with porcini, black truffles, and so on. We skipped the 2nd and 3rd piattos. We had a hazelnut with crème anglaise piece of cake (torta)—not too sweet, and very good.
The drive back to our B&B was a little challenging for us again. There are no street lights, the road is narrow and two-way, windy (as in curly), with sharp turns, and so on. Thank God, we are in the B&B safely once again.!
The scenery in this Piemonte region so far is SPECTACULAR (STUPENDA)!
Our Travels 