It poured with rain for most of the early hours of the morning. There even were a few claps of thunder quite a distance from us, so we were pleasantly surprised to find that the clouds were breaking up and the sun was trying to shine. Mick even spotted Monviso from our window for a few minutes, before the clouds returned and covered it. It was a bit like trying to get a glimpse of Mount Fuji all over again.

We agreed we should return to Barolo so we could walk through the little village that has a reputation for being very pretty and with loads of options for tasting and buying local wines. It was much busier today now that the rain had stopped, and it was a Friday after all. Eventually we found a park, not as close as the one we found yesterday, but the walk into the centre of the town gave us the chance to see into two wineries where wine making was well underway.

Barolo had a bar, and enoteca, a tavern or a restaurant just about every 20 metres.

High on the hill, that big building housed a Museum of Wines, which we chose not to visit, and a Wine Tasting room that had several interesting ways of educating visitors about the different wines in the region.

Each of these suspended bottles contained a liquid, unsure if they were actual wines, depicting the different colour of different grape varieties.

Then there was a row of these glass vessels, each filled with something different, like flowers, citrus fruit, strawberries etc. There was a button to press that then released the smell or aroma that they produced, helping visitors to understand the aromas that might be detected in some wines.

Finally there was a clever display where you could purchase a small sample of a wine and using this red handset, you could listen to quite a detailed story about the wine.

We very much enjoyed our walk around here, amazed at how many business were in the main part of the village. Mick commented that he was glad that we were not staying there, because if we were he would feel obliged to visit every single establishment during our stay. Phew.

Our final destination for today was Dogliani, but on our way there we stopped at Monforte d’Alba. And this too was a very cute village.

We decided we would have lunch here at Bar Barolo (yes but we were in Monforte d’Alba), obvioulsy named after the wine and not the village.

The waitress could not speak English, but all four of us managed to get something that we enjoyed. Mick chose the veal tartare, and both boys ordered a wine – an Arneis for Mick and a Nebbiolo for Michael.

Finally we headed to Dogliani, home to the Dolcetto grape and wines, and that was a big disappointment. It is a much bigger town than the others we have visited here, and not as pretty. It reminded us more of some French villages we had visited with its different architecture.

We parked near the River Rea, which runs through Dogliani and we could see the water rushing very fast. Not yet flooding here, but it was quite fearce.

We didn’t spend too long here as most things looked closed – it was 2pm and we’d forgotten about the ‘siesta’ time. All was not lost though, as we found a large supermarket where we were able to buy some food for tonight’s dinner. Michael and Jeanie cooked us a meal of sausages, including some sausages from Bra (remember that Bra is famous for its cheese and its sausage). When we spotted them we had to try them. While they were very nice, I think we all preferred the Country Sausages – salsicce di campagna.

Not too late a night, as we will head back to Bra in the morning to take Michael and Jeanie to (hopefully) catch a train to Turin. Their final destination is Paris, and we are all hoping that the trains are running as they are supposed to.

It has been wonderful to be able to spend these few days together in the Piedmont.

POSTSCRIPT

Speaking of flooding, we have had one of our accommodation providers cancel our booking in France due to catastrophic mudslides following torrential rain – there is no longer any access to the B&B we had hoped to stay in. Absolutely worse for them than us.

Looking at the map of France where we want to spend 2 weeks after our visit here in Italy, it is looking a little concerning. We may need to make some changes.

This old saying sounds quite apt…….“we’ll cross that bridge…”!