Una bella settimana in Piemonte

I Tre Fuochi (The Three Fires) was our home for eight nights- and it was fantastic! The house is just outside of a town called Castiglione Tinella in the Cuneo comune of the Piemonte region of Italy (phew!). Nobody in our group had ever visited the region, which is why we chose to go there.

Marino (our host) and his family have a beautiful property. Their home is attached to two rental units (one is under construction). Our house had four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a huge farmhouse kitchen table, a fireplace, an elevator, Wi-Fi (my boys' favorite part of the week, according to them 🙄), and anything else that you can think of to make it comfortable. It was great to unpack and do laundry!


In addition, the property has amazing views of the surrounding hills, towns, and on clear days, the Alps. It was stunning. The first day, we hiked through the vineyards, attempting to reach the city before we realized that the distance and the ravine were going to be too much for us. We had to settle for walking and/or jogging on the road. We were lucky to have mostly clear days and very mild temperatures, with several days in the mid-50s.

Most importantly, there was soccer. And puppies. Despite what they claim, these were more important for my kids. Ben has been very anxious about this trip, and we pretty much sold him on it by promising that the country loves soccer. The day that he got to borrow a soccer ball and start kicking it around with Ethan and Oscar (more on him later) was a great day for him. The kisses from Pepi and Nuvola (the puppies) were a hit as well. Ethan would wake up every morning wondering, "Are the puppies out yet?"

Puppy kisses- key to getting kids to love Italy.

During the day, we would usually venture out to at least one neighboring town to explore. Keeping the kids happy meant we didn't go farther than about an hour. Our list of towns included La Morra, Alba, Bra, Neive, Monforte d'Alba... I'm sure I'm missing a few. We would find a place to park, stop at the bar to get a treat (usually pastries) and coffee/tea, then hike to the top of the city to check out the sights. The kids got to run around in the piazzas. It goes without saying that the architecture in Europe is amazing. I am not an aficionado in either architecture or art, so I can't tell you much about what we've seen- just that it's breathtaking. 

The Italian schedule is much different than that of America. Between 2:00-4:00 p.m., everything shuts down for siesta time. Dave stopped at the market one afternoon and the owner was quite grumpy with him for disturbing his rest! This meant that most days we were heading out with kids in the morning, eating lunch at our last stop or on the way home, and then staying around the house to cook dinner. We picked up groceries several times. The quality of pasta and pasta sauce that you can get here for a reasonable price is outstanding, even if it's not fresh- and we did buy enough fresh gnocchi to feed an army.

We celebrated New Year's Eve by going out for a wine tasting. There are several famous varieties of wine in the region, including Barbaresco, Barbera d'Alba, and Barolo. Again, the quality of wine that you can get cheaply here (for 10 euro, or about $13), is pretty outstanding. We were back in the house at 7:00 on New Year's, and everyone had trouble making it until midnight. Similar to all of the other nights home with the kids, we played cards, sampled wine, and enjoyed each others' company.

Holiday decorations were still up in every town.

We could see New Year's Fireworks all across the panorama without leaving our house.

This kid. He's so much like his mom...