So as you may or may not have figured out, I came to italy a few weeks ago. I am here for a semester abroad, staying in the piedmont region, Alba more specifically.
Alba is a neat little city. Big enough to be included in most tour books, but small enough that no one really bothers visiting. Its known for its wine and truffles (classy i know). Every year, Alba's big boast, is the truffle festival, which is officially beginning this weekend. If you aren't sure what truffles are (GASP) they are kind of these large mushroomy things that taste like garlic. Chefs generally shave them on top of your risotto or sometimes pasta. Most importantly, truffles are extremely expensive. Which means that everyone wants them. Here, they celebrate these truffles with a festival, parades, concerts, and a large donkey race around the town. It should be fairly exciting. Our whole group has been asked to dress up in traditional Italian renascence garb and walk around in some sort of reenactment. Craig is a soldier. he is wearing some kind of tunic and a helmet and gets a real sword.... but thats not the best part, the best part is that he has to wear...LEGGINGS. yes, leggings. don't worry i will take lots of pictures. I am some sort of Esmerelda figure in a white underdress and a green lace up corset. I think this should be especially fun since, none of us really speak italian, and thus will have no idea what's going on, or who we are supposed to be dressed as. Should be an exciting weekend to say the least.
Since arriving here in alba, we have been soo busy. (which kind of stinks, because if you would ever want free time, it would be here in italy!) But nonetheless, we have been on a rigorous schedule of various classes and trips. I am currently in musicology, economics of wine, and italian. I have each of these classes every day (yes everyday... even last year when i was overloading my credit schedule i only had classes three days a week...sigh). We have also taken several group trips...you may or may not have seen the pictures i posted of each of these little outings.
Bus tour of Langhe:
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| basically Langhe, is the hill area surrounding Alba. Alba is a city in a valley, surrounded by hill country. The hill country is covered in rows and rows of terraced vineyards, and on each hill there is a little town. The names of all these towns have the names of famous wines, since these are the towns where those wines are produced. IE: Barolo, Barbaresco... What makes each of these wines different? the grapes used! for example Barolo is made with nebbiola grapes, and Barolo wine can ONLY be produced in this region. If its not from here, it can't say Barolo on the label. But other towns in Langhe are named after the castles which dominate those towns, such as MonteForte, S'Vittoria. There are lots of castles in the Langhe region, which makes the already beautiful landscape even more breathtaking. Each of these small hill towns are very compact, they usually consist of a church at one end, and some stores and shops along a main drag, with a school or town hall at the other end of the "town." Our bus tour basically consisted of us all getting on a bus (an orange mercedes bus) and then hurtling along dangerously thin roads with lots of hairpin turns at top speed, while dan blair droned on about random things over the bus microphone. Occasionally we would get out of the bus and walk around to a hilltop where there are fabulous views. In one piazza i found an old man and his dog, they were rather adorable so i tried out some very broken italian with him. |
Famous buildings of Alba walking tour:
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This was a long, but interesting tour we took early one morning, walking through alba and poking in and out of several large churches, and town hall. I learned that Alba is home to several works of art by famous painters, which are hung in the ornate churches. I also learned that most gorgeous churches start looking the same after a while. Town hall was very traditional and cute. Everyone in the council sits in these little velvet red chairs and faces a long mahogany table up front where important people sit and deliberate on things. |
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This was an awful tour, where i spent the majority of my time sneaking pictures of Elizabeth and James, the other couple on our trip, who are rather adorable in a honeymoon kind of way. Its not that the museum itself was awful, it was just that the our tour guide didn't speak any english, so everything she said had to be translated for us, and the tour ended up taking three or four hours (keep in mind that this is a very small museum). |
Summer School in Cuneo:
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| not such a fun trip. Cuneo is another city, about an hour and a half away from Alba, right at the foot of the Alps. Literally the Alps look over the city at all times, huge, blue white, and glittering. I never realized that mountains could glitter. I guess its the way the sun hits them and the fact that they are covered with snow and ice, but they really do glitter on clear days. Cuneo is pretty large, lots of shops, a Zara's (my favorite clothing store, Italy, US or elsewhere), an old record shop, several schools and universities, and lovely cafe's. However we spent our summer school days here in a large white lecture hall. Trying hard not to fall asleep, at this conference. The topic was "religion in the public sphere" interesting right? yeah except... everything was in italian! so we all wore headsets, where when switched onto channel two, we could hear the voice of a whispering translator who was seated in the back of the hall. This would have worked out except that the speakers were apparently speaking too fast, and the translators really didn't know all that english so that when we put on our headsets during the presentations the lady was whispering broken translation that made little to no sense at all..."the modernity of religion, obviously, duality....i didn't get that part there....um hospitality of bhuddism, abrahamic religions, judaism, christianity modernity of human." So as you can imagine we all suffered through these three hour lectures. two in the morning, two in the evening. for two days. it was very seriously dreadful. Craig took matters upon himself and started secretly plugging his earphones into his ipod and watching movies instead of into the translation radio things. We would bus in early in the morning, and leave after dark, it was a waste of two days in my opinion. but unfortunately it was mandatory for some reason. |
Trip to the Ferraro factory:
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| Alba smells like chocolate. Moreso on some days then on others, but always there is that lingering smell in the air. This is because... NUTELLA is produced here. yes that delicious chocolate hazelnut spread is made right here in alba! also ferrero roche. So we made this trip to the Ferraro factory community center, a community center set up and funded by the ferrero factory. Here we listened to a speaker talk about Bepe Finolgio, a famous partisan from alba, and then we watched a movie called "johny the partisan" based off of a semi auto biographical book written by bepe finolgio. This was all educational but the best part by far was the break, where they fed us kinder chocolates and fererro roches with fresh coffee. nothing like coffee and chocolate to liven up your morning. |
Corvetto Winery and the Barolo Wine Museum:
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This was a more recent trip... And by far i think, the best trip yet. We visited a famous family winery, acres and acres of hillside of grapes, each type of grape planted in accordance to its sunlight needs in the north, east, south, or west. Inside the wine cellar were endless rows of huge wooden wine barrels, and when i say huge, i mean like... you could easily fit fifteen people in each barrel, standing up. On the front of each barrel was a little black chalkboard, which would say the kind of wine, and the year. The whole wine cellar smelled pungently of grapes and wine, one of those smells so strong you can almost taste it. The best part, of course, was the tasting, where we had a young chardonnay, a barolo d'alba (2006 i believe), and then two barbarescos (a 2004 and a 2006). Everything was delicious. I am going to look around stores here to see if i can find the families brand and pick up some of their chardonnay i loved so much. Im definitely a white wine kind of girl, although i will admit, nothing beats a borolo when your eating tagliatelle pasta. Then after the tour of the winery, we all headed off to the Barolo wine museum, a converted castle, which was now a wealth of information about wine, the history of wine, types of wine, wine from around the world. Very fascinating, and for once, our tour guide spoke perfect english, a godsend. |
Here wine, and produce in general, are such essential parts of the culture. I hope this thought stays with me when i leave italy. The idea that everything is connected, people, the earth, the food we eat. Everything has a direct effect on everything else, the people here are so aware of where their food is coming from, at the saturday market people go to the same farm stands week after week, buying their cheese or sausage or veggies from the same family week after week. The relationship is very strong between people and where their food comes from. Even the grocery stores here are selling mostly local foods with labels specifying which surrounding towns the food is coming from. everything is connected by the seasons, the sun and the moon, the rotation of the earth.
"the sun for the grapes, the moon for the wine"
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