My parents took us on a surprise trip to Piedmont (just bordering France, a bit north of the Italian Riviera), to celebrate my birthday.
We set off by driving through the Valley of Roya (a river) up to Cuneo. A very nice drive, I might say, with plenty of dramatic scenery and pretty villages. Our first stop was Cuneo, a nice and prosperous-looking town near the French border. It's famous for its enormous town square - Piazza Galimberti, where there is a weekly market (which wasn't on when we were there).
We had lunch in Cuneo - once we found a restaurant (strangely enough it wasn't easy).
From here we headed to the Langhe hills area, which is famous for its wine production. We stayed in a very nice hotel (which was actually operated by a fellow Finn - which as all other Finnish establishments in this blog hereby gets free advertising ;-): http://www.villacarita.it/) just outside La Morra (yes, a pretty little village sitting on a hilltop). A very nice place I must say!
We spent some time visiting the village as well. Nice as the village was, we relatively quickly ended up tasting the local wines in one of the local establishments.....
The next day, we headed off towards Alba, braving the horrid rain, sleet and winds (at its worst the temperature was actually below 0 - at the same time in Finland it was +10 degrees! That doesn't happen very often I would guess!). Alba was a very nice old town, sittings snugly in the centre of the wine producing region.
From here on we carried on to Asti - famous for the Asti Spumante sparkling wine. The town itself was pretty nice but yet somehow disappointing - the relentless rain and cold of course didn't help.
From here we carried on to Cherasco, which was actually really nice. If it wasn't for the cars the place could've been from another century. And the place wasn't even very touristy (again, the rain & cold might have had something to do with it...).
We set off by driving through the Valley of Roya (a river) up to Cuneo. A very nice drive, I might say, with plenty of dramatic scenery and pretty villages. Our first stop was Cuneo, a nice and prosperous-looking town near the French border. It's famous for its enormous town square - Piazza Galimberti, where there is a weekly market (which wasn't on when we were there).
We had lunch in Cuneo - once we found a restaurant (strangely enough it wasn't easy).
From here we headed to the Langhe hills area, which is famous for its wine production. We stayed in a very nice hotel (which was actually operated by a fellow Finn - which as all other Finnish establishments in this blog hereby gets free advertising ;-): http://www.villacarita.it/) just outside La Morra (yes, a pretty little village sitting on a hilltop). A very nice place I must say!
We spent some time visiting the village as well. Nice as the village was, we relatively quickly ended up tasting the local wines in one of the local establishments.....
The next day, we headed off towards Alba, braving the horrid rain, sleet and winds (at its worst the temperature was actually below 0 - at the same time in Finland it was +10 degrees! That doesn't happen very often I would guess!). Alba was a very nice old town, sittings snugly in the centre of the wine producing region.
From here on we carried on to Asti - famous for the Asti Spumante sparkling wine. The town itself was pretty nice but yet somehow disappointing - the relentless rain and cold of course didn't help.
From here we carried on to Cherasco, which was actually really nice. If it wasn't for the cars the place could've been from another century. And the place wasn't even very touristy (again, the rain & cold might have had something to do with it...).
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