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Day in Piedmont area

wisteria

New Member
I made a small trip to the Piedmont area in Italy around two weeks ago– heres a little recount of what I did :)
[for my first post I'm gonna keep it about one day. I may include more about my entire trip, but I will see]

First of all, I decided to rent an e-bike to view the vineyards and various villages better. While I saw a few bike rentals, I decided to go with e-bikes mostly because of the hills that I would need to tackle. While I do bike a bit at home, I’m not at the level of fitness to tackle the hills.

The company that I decided to go to (Itaway) was extremely helpful in showing me which routes I could take as well as suggestion various viewpoints and restaurants to visit. They also had an app which I downloaded and I could put my phone on the bike phone holder where I could follow the route guidance and see any alerts of viewpoints. Honestly it was such a great experience that I can only sing praise of them. [Heres their website if any of you want to take a look: https://itaway.eu/en]

I started off from Barolo (where I had the bikes delivered to me – you can also just drive to their Novello location to pick up and start biking from there) and picked a route where I got to see more of Barolo and the near by village of La Morra. I decided to visit the points of interests of Barolo when I made my way back as a way of relaxing after biking.

At first, I had doubts as to whether I would be able to make the route (+23km) with all the hills, but the e-bikes made it a breeze and I got to enjoy the scenic views.

Must see points of La Morra:
  • Panoramic View
    • Anyone who goes to La Morra has to visit the giant viewpoint where you can see all the nearby villages! Its honestly a stunning panoramic view, and apparently larger mountains can be seen in the distance on a better day.
  • Cathedrals
    • I also enjoyed just parking my bike and walking around the town itself to look at the buildings and the cathedrals there. When I went I bumped into an orchestra performing in one of the cathedrals as well as an art gallery of sorts in the same cathedral. It heightened my experience there and I got to enjoy my time eating at one of the wine bars there.
  • Colourful Chapel
    • I took a small detour from the route suggested by the Itaway App and decided to go find this colourful church. The road to get there was not really paved and was more of a dirt road, but the art piece of David Tremlet was worth the slight struggle to get there. It isn’t a large chapel, but definitely unique which makes it a great place to visit.
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On the road back to Barolo, I passed by Cedro Del Libano which is a single tree rumoured to be extremely old and is a rare tree to find in this area. It is on top of a hill and the story behind it is that a young man planted that rare tree many years ago for his lover, and said that his love for her will last as long as the tree is alive – and it still stays strong today. Also another rumour is that kissing under the tree will bring good luck to the couple!

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Must see points of Barolo:
  • Wine!!
    • Definitely a must in Barolo where the Barolo wine originated from! I made a visit at the end of my trip to Antiche Cantine Marchesi Di Barolo where I signed up for an english winery tour online. My tour guide explained the process of wine making to me and it was very informative. (http://www.marchesibarolo.com/en/hospitality)
  • Streets/Cathedral
    • Just like in La Morra, I enjoyed walking along the streets and just enjoying the vibe of the town at the end of the day.
  • Corkscrew Museum
    • I didn’t actually get a chance to enter as the day I was there it was closed, but it is only 4 euros to enter. From the photos outside the museum itself, it seems to be very interesting!
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After a whole day of biking, I returned to my B&B and just took some time to relax.

I’m planning to go back one day to try the different routes offered to see more of the vineyards or just returning in general to one of the other nearby villages– but perhaps next time in the fall where I can see more of the truffle findings as well as the beautifully coloured vineyards.
 
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A very fine post and a lot achieved in a single day.
What's the gearing like on the e-bike, or is it fixed wheel and expecting the battery to take up the slack on the hills? Those look like good robust tyres - useful as IIRC the route down to the Tremlet / DeWitt chapel is a relatively rough track. The story goes that they took payment for the artwork in the form of a supply of a large number of bottles of Barolo wine.

As an alternative, I'll always put in a good word for the walking between villages, invariably through the vineyards whose names grace the single vineyard bottlings. Very enjoyable and no traffic except the the very occasional tractor or jogger/walker.
 
As an alternative, I'll always put in a good word for the walking between villages, invariably through the vineyards whose names grace the single vineyard bottlings. Very enjoyable and no traffic except the the very occasional tractor or jogger/walker.

Are you walking on marked trails or heading out on white roads? I've read that there is good walking in the Piedmont but we've only passed through the area.
 
Hi Pauline
One advantage of the Langhe wine region, including Barolo and La Morra that Wisteria went to, is vineyards are almost always in shared ownership. That means that access is not *blocked off, so you can walk using the same rough but well maintained tracks that the growers, pickers, etc. use, and these criss-cross the vineyards so there is great freedom to walk through the likes of Cerequio, Brunate, etc. vineyards. It is even feasible to navigate via these vineyard names using the colourful Masnaghetti maps beloved by wine enthusiasts or even with nothing but somewhere like La Morra (perched on the hill) in sight as the target, however even better is the walking map sold through the LangheRoero.it website. IIRC just €6 and with good detail and lots of paths marked. The local tourist offices and the odd shop usually stock it.

Not all the paths go through vineyards, as there is still some woodland left, and the walk from Barolo to Monforte has a lovely section of woodland barely 5 mins walk from Barolo. There is also occasionally a little road, maintained or not, but barring the very occasional tractor, they are empty. IIRC it's one of these that branches off to the colourful Cappella della Madonna delle Grazi pictured above. It's also around here that we stumbled across a huge patch of ink-cap mushrooms in a patch dug over prior to re-planting of some vines. Like a bizarre fungal lunar landscape. The mushrooms are edible, however not if mixed with alcohol in the bloodstream, plus after picking they degrade to deposit the spores in an inky liquid, so we left them there.

Regards
Ian

* I've just realised that the French word 'Clos' (for walled off) must have lent it's name to 'enclosed'. It never occurred to me before!
 
A very fine post and a lot achieved in a single day.
What's the gearing like on the e-bike, or is it fixed wheel and expecting the battery to take up the slack on the hills? Those look like good robust tyres - useful as IIRC the route down to the Tremlet / DeWitt chapel is a relatively rough track. The story goes that they took payment for the artwork in the form of a supply of a large number of bottles of Barolo wine.

As an alternative, I'll always put in a good word for the walking between villages, invariably through the vineyards whose names grace the single vineyard bottlings. Very enjoyable and no traffic except the the very occasional tractor or jogger/walker.

Hi Ian

I'm not too sure about the technicality about the bikes, but they do have the gearing that normal bikes have (if that is what you mean). And yes the route down to the Tremlet/DeWitt chapel was difficult, I ended up pushing the bike in fear of it not working well on the rough road.

As for the walking between the villages I did see some trail signs but I didn't get a chance to walk them! Definitely will have to give them and walking between vineyards a try the next time I go.
 

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