Italy Part II: Piedmont Region

The second leg of our European vacation landed us in the Piedmont Region (northwest Italy). Our home base was Govone and from there, we drove through neighboring towns to explore. We had some amazing meals and walked through some of the cutest little towns. Let's take a walk down memory lane!

GOVONE

STAY

For two nights in Govone, we called Ca Alfieri al 30 our home, a beautiful bed & breakfast run by an Italian couple. This is a small sitting area in our room with a balcony that overlooks the grounds.

How beautiful is this?! We were lucky to have such beautiful weather and it was a treat to relax on our balcony and bask in the sun.

I fell in love with the decor of our room. I mean, look at the beautiful ceiling!

The bed and breakfast was quite charming. We were very comfortable and the location was great. It was centrally located to all the places we had planned on visiting.

We had breakfast outdoors both mornings; a great way to start kick start our day. Look at the view beyond Dan - so peaceful!

On our first night at the B&B, we took a pasta making class. It was a lot of fun but so much work! Dan was definitely more of a pro than I am and the instructor defn picked up on that. The woman who instructed us didn't speak any English so the B&B host stayed with us to translate. I really loved that we did this - something different that we had not done before. I have so much respect for anyone who makes their own pasta. I'll stick to buying it from the store ;)

TA-DA! The finished product. In addition to making the pasta, we also made bolognese sauce to go with it. We were very happy with how it turned out. I'm drooling over this photo right now.

EAT

Our last evening in Govone was on a Sunday. Our B&B host advised that making a dinner reservation was highly recommended, as many families go out to dinner on Sundays. Our host had to call a few restaurants before we landed a reservation at Lo e Luna. It was about a 25 minute drive from our B&B. It was still warm enough in the evening for us to dine outside. The service was excellent - extra food and dessert was brought out to us, compliments of the Chef, who we got to meet at the end of our meal! The food was very yummy. Unfortunately, no other food pic evidence to share, as it got really dark outside. But take our word, we highly recommend it.

BAROLO

On our full day there, we took a road trip through the surrounding towns. Our first stop was Barolo, know for its wine. Dan was determined to find some wines to ship home so we were in the right region. Barolo is a small town, so it didn't take us too long to stroll through.

La Morra

We stopped by La Morra for Dan to take some photos. He read that this town had some amazing panoramic views. There were so many cute little homes like this one scattered throughout.

ALBA

Alba was probably my favorite town of all the ones we visited that day. It was a lot larger and had almost a city feel to it. Since it was Sunday, many of the shops were closed. But we made up for that with the food. For lunch I was craving pizza and Dan found Locanda Da Gio. This pizza hit the spot and met all of my pregnancy cravings: sardines & capers. I ALMOST finished the entire pizza!

We happened to walk through an open air market filled with so many things I could not eat :(. At this particular stand, Dan purchased 3 links of cured meats because it was only 15 euro! He also purchased some cheeses (first picture in this blog) with the intention of cutting everything up for our drive the next day to Milan. Needless to say, I was totally #jealous.

This is him in action when we got back to the B&B. It's his 'roadie' snack. LOL.

And of course we stopped for gelato at La Romana. Strawberry is always my go to and this time I had it mixed with some dark chocolate. Dan went with the Gianduia (hazelnut) with chocolate. He was nice enough to give me a little taste!

Canelli

Next stop, Canelli, a small picturesque town. We stopped for the photog to snap some pics of the beautiful rolling hills.

BARBARESCO

It was in Barbaresco that Dan found a winery he really liked, Rocche Dei Barbari. He hit it off with the winery owner, who kept feeding him all the wines! We ended up shipping a case of 6 bottles home. I'd like to report that the bottles arrived safe and sound (and quickly) to our home.

The next morning we had our breakfast and headed out. We wanted to make the most of the day and a half we would have in Milan. I need to get my shop on before going home :)