Hill towns near Alba and Asti

October 16, 2007, Tuesday

I decided to drive around some of the small hill towns in the region. I saw a couple while I was driving around Bra, Barolo, etc. and thought it would be nice to visit a few.

This takes another note to explain: I got the GPS thinking that it would help me find wineries and get around easier. Well, we saw how mistaken that idea was earlier. I also found that the antenna kept falling off, so it would lose the satellites and have to resync (a process taking several minutes). All in all, it’s been pretty useless. But not to fear, driving around isn’t a problem. What you have to do is find a sequence of mid-sized towns toward any small destination and just follow the signs. This isn’t hard if you have even a moderately decent map. There are good signs at intersections and roundabouts showing which direction to take toward a destination. But, of course, they only list the major cities and next size down of towns at most places (like Alba, Asti, Torino) and small villages in the nearby vicinity. So you have to get in close, but then the signs take you right there. I had no problem finding villages of only a few 10s of homes.

The trick is, when you see a hill town, how to find out the name of it. This is usually pretty easy. Just stop someone, point at it, and ask. Then you can follow the signs. In this fashion I visited: Santa Vittoria d’Alba, Canale, San Stefano Roero, San Damiano d’Alba, Asti, Isola d’Asti Villa, Neivi, Barbaresco, and Tre Stelle.

Santa Vittoria d’Alba is the village on the hilltop I’d seen while driving to Barolo yesterday. It has a castle with a big tower on it that has been remade into a hotel. And an old church with a parish house. And that’s it (well, there may be a few houses on the approaches going up the hill, but there are no shops of any kind). Sort of isolated (you have to drive down into the valley to anything). The castle/hotel does have a restaurant with the hotel that has a gorgeous view out over the grape fields. Alas, they were closed, so I couldn’t even sit there and sip an espresso.

There is a very small town near here named Cinzano. There is a manufacturing facility for the aperitif called Cinzano here, but there are many towns in different provinces named Cinzano, so it’s not really all that special. I had to take a picture of the sign, though!

Canale. A larger town (maybe 10,000 people). They had a nice farmer’s market, and yes, there were vegetables on offer. I bought 3 clementines and an apple for $1.50. Yes, that’s right—buying food at markets here is very cheap. Lunch at a random place here (the “typical” tagliatella with butter and sage) was pretty good.

San Stefano Roero. Another hill town, a bit larger than Santa Vittoria. It had a decent center, but nothing special. Just outside of town, however, there was a church that had a set of Stations of the Cross. Actually there are a few churches in the area that are connected by these Stations, so that you start at Saint James and Saint Philip chapels and progress through them to end at Saint Sepulcher chapel. These Stations are called Sanctuario del Piloni. There’s a picture of the explanatory sign (in English).

San Damiano d’Alba is a larger town, but without anything of interest. There is, however, a large Campari plant just outside town…

Asti is one of the larger towns in the area and is the capitol of the province of Asti. It’s about the same size as Alba (maybe a bit larger), but it’s much better connected to the Autostrade and rail lines. If I were choosing again, I might stay in Asti rather than in Alba, although Alba has better restaurants.

Isola d’Asti Villa. This is a very charming hill town. It has a tower, and the homes in the small center are beautifully kept. Just like out of a storybook. It’s twice the size Santa Vittoria, but that isn’t saying a lot.

Neivi is another small hill town. It has a castle (the Counts of Castelborgo lived here) in which the Nebbiolo grape was first pressed into Barbaresco wine. The Counts did the experimentation that yielded the wine type. There is also a garden with the castle, but neither has been kept up.

For all it’s fame, the village of Barbaresco is tiny. Hardly anything but a church, a winery, and a town hall (oh, and two 1 star Michelin restaurants). There may be 50-100 homes in the village. Most of the people live out in the district, nearer the vineyards. The hills surrounding Barbaresco undulate gently and are covered in grapevines. It’s really very enchanting.

Tre Stelle is really just a bump in the road and hardly qualifies as a “suburb” of Barbaresco. But this is where one of Barbaresco’s two Michelin 1 star restaurants is located. I stopped to look, but it was closed.

Back in Alba, I had dinner at a restaurant/pizzeria, called Cincilla (and pronounced chinchilla) I found and tried to eat at on Sunday (but they were way too crowded for that). The food was “typical Piemontese” meaning I had the tagliatelle, but with white truffles (paying the 25 euro premium for some shavings).