Road trip to Piedmont

I can't remember the last time I said that - probably well over a year ago? Although we have been on plenty of trips via public transportation over the past year I can count the number of times I have been in a car since last December on one hand, and all of those have only been short distance within Zurich (crazily enough I have not driven a car since December!). Anyways, last weekend was not only the first road trip in a long time for Steve and myself, the first road trip for Emma, but also Emma's first time ever riding in a car! Yes, it is true that for the first 10.5 weeks of her life there was never a car ride. If we had not decided to rent a car for this trip she likely would have gone until late December when we return home for a visit to the states without riding in a car. However we decided last month that we needed a little weekend trip away considering it had been since the end of April that we had spent a full weekend (both of us) away from home. In the U.S. we probably woudn't have thought twice about not having been anywhere for awhile, but living here we start to get the itch to travel if we have not gone somewhere for a couple weeks. 



So our weekend destination of choice was the Piedmont region of northern Italy. According to google maps it was only supposed to be a 4.5 - 5 hour drive and the region is home to some of our favorite wines (sweet, white & sparkling). We also thought it would be fun to be in wine country during harvest time. As a result the fields were full of people as the families that own the vineyards enlist help from all of their family members to pick the grapes. In the biggest town of the region, Asti (hence the name Asti Spumante) there was also a wine competition going on with a tasting festival to celebrate the harvest. I found it quite funny that while half of the locals are out working from dawn until dusk in the fields to harvest the grapes, the other half of the locals are in town drinking and celebrating all day!

You can barely see it, but this tractor is practically overflowing with grapes!

To our surprise the drive down on Friday evening was better than expected (at least I had kept my expectations pretty low considering we had a small baby in tow on her first car ride). It started a little rough when we arrived at Hertz and they said they didn't have our reservation, but lucky for us they found another automatic car (most of the rentals are manual) which also happened to be brand new with leather interior. It was as we called it the "SUV of Europe," a Volkswagon station wagon.

Steve's trademark photo with the rental car

Happy so far!

Once we got going it went smoothly and there were none of the infamous long delays as went through the tunnels that fill the roads of southern Switzerland, there is even one that is nearly 12 miles long through the mountains! And we only missed one major exit, which landed us driving through downtown Milan, oops. However on the bright side Emma did pretty well. She preferred not to sleep and instead was entertained with the contraption she was sitting in, and by her mother's crazy antics to keep her entertained in the back seat while dad played chauffeur. She even took her bottle without question while sitting in the car seat. Finally we were amazed that somehow we managed to find our bed & breakfast, which was about a 20 minute drive from the highway. However the directions from the highway really didn't include road names because names or road numbers don't really exist, or as we found some roads are numbered with the same number even though they intersect one another! Instead our directions went something like this... "Take the second right off the roundabout, go straight thru the next roundabout, and then go left. At the next fork in the road go right." Maps are completely pointless here and GPS can even only help so much.

Despite it being almost 10 pm when we arrived we were warmly welcomed and quickly directed to our room without even asking for ID or a credit card. We did later come to find out there were only four rooms so I guess they assumed we were the Joneses and didn't just randomly find our way there.




Beautiful flowers at our B&B

Sign for our B&B along with amazing views

The next morning we were blown away by the beauty of the place we were staying, which was situated at the top of a large hill surrounded by sweeping views of vineyard after vineyard. Not only were the views fantastic, but the service was excellent, food was great, and it was a bargain! After a leisurely breakfast we took off to enjoy the countryside and hit a few wineries in the area. We quickly found out that wineries in this region are not like wineries in the U.S. with distinct signage, opening times and big tasting areas. Instead we found ourselves wondering several times as we drove past one whether or not it was even open to visitors. We know this is partially just due to the fact that these are truly small family businesses and are not geared towards tastings as much as they do in the U.S. Also because it was harvest time we think the majority of the families were out in the fields, leaving the front gate/door closed, and us wondering whether we should even see if anyone was around. Lucky for us we didn't mind just driving through these tiny villages and past the wineries as the countryside was beautiful. After trying several wineries that we couldn't find anyone at we finally had success and we picked the right one as that morning they had won an award for their Moscato D'Asti, which just happens to be our favorite wine! It wasn't hard to figure out why, we may or may not have bought more than a few bottles...

Saracco vineyards - the wine that inspired our trip, but we unfortunately didn't get to taste

Happy with our exploration of the countryside, a lunch of ice cream in a small town, and making it successfully to one winery we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing in the glorious weather and soaking in the views from the place we were staying. Steve even enjoyed the pool and we both enjoyed some of our bed & breakfast's own wine and fresh picked moscato grapes! Needless to say we couldn't have asked for a more perfect day that was topped off by a superb five-course dinner - a first for me! And for those of you wondering as I was what could really be included in a five-course dinner it included a cold appetizer (carpaccio), hot appetizer (cooked eggplant and pepper with various sauces), small bowl of pasta or risotto, main entree of chicken or rabbit with salad, and dessert (cheesecake). Not only was the food delicious, but we ate outside on a beautiful terrace with the B&B's family pets (2 dogs and a cat) keeping us company, and our sweet baby girl sound asleep in her stroller.

Mother & daughter taking in the views

Emma enjoying the pool...

Dad & daughter

Our afternoon snack on the patio

Sunday came too quickly as it meant we had to drive home, but not before exploring the town of Asti and the wine festival going on to celebrate the harvest. At the festival each of the small towns and villages of the region sold some of their best food and wine products. So we tasted a few more wines and found a good Italian lunch of extra large slices of pizza (and to our delight our entire meal cost less than one slice of pizza in Zurich would cost).

Harvest festival in Asti

Unfortunately our drive home was not quite as enjoyable as our drive there. We had made relatively good time on Friday, but our drive on Sunday came in closer to 8 hours as we hit terrible traffic at the entrance to the longest tunnel. To say the least, with a couple hours still left in the drive Emma had had enough. But we all survived and made it home and Steve did a great job driving considering he was driving in Italy and how little driving either of us has done in recent months. We also didn't get checked at the border coming into the country, which was probably good as we know we were over the limit on alcohol allowed to bring back in the country (but how could we resist as the bottles were dirt cheap direct from the wineries?).

All in all it was almost a perfect trip. The only thing that could have made it better? Making it longer!

Still trying to figure out this sign at the Italian tolls - does it mean that trucks and cars can go thru at the same time - the truck will just drive on top of the car and pay above it?

Traffic before the tunnel... at one point in time there were more people outside of their cars than inside!