Well, off we went again, awning mourning over and refreshed after a few days in the mountains. The weather has been a bit pants but we enjoyed a few nice walks and a few beers at Les Collons. We also got to catch up with The Apprentice! (what a lot of cr*p that is thesedays – but go Tom!). We set off this morning – we always aim for early but never quite manage it! We headed for Barolo, where his nibs wanted to explore the wine etc. Our route took us over the Grand St Bernard Pass, the highest of our trip so far. We had done it before at the same time of year but we were better served by the weather this time, so the view was much better. Much less snow this time, but still enough!
We had intended to side step Turin on the motorway but missed a turn and ended up in the city, which is just about the scariest thing I have encountered in a long time. Practically every car in Turin has a dent (or two, or more) and it is no wonder when you consider the way the locals drive – they are much worse in the big cities than generally in Italy. I never want to be in a car in Milan that’s for sure!
We arrived at our chosen campsite late afternoon. It was the only campsite we could find on the net anywhere near Barolo, about 3km away. We set up our pitch and then did a quick tour on the bikes to see where we were. A very steep hill into Barolo, so we decided to save that for the next day. We found a little shop and bought some local wine and headed back to camp to fire up the outdoor cooker and rustle up a mushroom risotto with parmesan. The campsite is lovely, very small but clean facilities and away from the crowds etc…. just as we like. Some existing campers warned us of the steepness of the hill from Barolo, but that’s for tomorrow! For now the local wine is good!
The cycle down the hill first thing was lovely. Sunshine and a beautiful view, with virtually no pedalling! No pedalling down for 4 km means hard work back though! We spent the morning wandering through Barolo’s narrow streets and had cappachinos and coffee before the tour round the wine museum. Later we decided to cycle downhill to do some more wineries, but this meant cycling uphill some more! We did around 10km that day, with at least 6 of them up steep hills! Boy was I knackered after! Once we returned a shower and we were ready for supper at the local trattoria. This was an interesting affair! No menu, just the waitress indicating at each course 5 in total) what was on offer. Veal was a special feature! Including veal tartare, which was described as veal cappaccio – which the old man chose. After a few minutes his ball of minced dead cow baby arrived, dressed with lemon oil, parmesan, olive oil etc (but it was still a dead baby!). He had more veal later but I had a nice dish of angel hair pasta with sage oil and another with asparagus and béchamel. Add desert, coffee and a couple of bottles of local wine and the evening went swimmingly! Barolo had been a lovely stop on our tour and we’d return here in a heartbeat.
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