Piedmont, the colors of Italy

This is a guest post from my lovely friend, Tuula Mattson.  An American living in France, Tuula has called Europe home for the past 4 years. Having fulfilled a lifelong dream of living  and working in Rome, Italy, she now resides in Provence with a surprisingly charming Frenchman and writes about her three loves: France, Italy, and chocolate pastries.  Her website is Le Petit France Blog. You can also find her on Twitter at @petitfranceblog.

Italy continues to fascinate us and each time I return I find the pull to visit the bel paese only getting stronger. Whenever we are fortunate enough to travel across the border, I spend a lot of time thinking about just what it is that makes Italy so special. Surely we have the food, wine, and history to draw us in and keep us coming back.  And there’s always a new mystery to unravel in each unexplored region. The opportunity to look deeper, for example, at those dazzling Romans with their amphitheaters, grand monuments, and grander ambitions. And what of Tuscany with its few hundred years that changed the face of art and architecture?  Then we’d be forgetting Umbria, with its beautiful hilltop towns, incredible vistas & equally formidable cuisine. In Italy, there always seems to be a “more”.

And then there’s Piedmont.  More to learn, more to discover, and more world-class gastronomy packed into this relatively small corner of the world than seems humanly possible.  Throughout our one-week tour of the region, I felt thoroughly (albeit happily) overwhelmed. Of course there were the wines. Too many to list and too many to really get more than a heady overview of.

We sampled Barberas from Asti, Monferrato, Agliano Terme and from a sprinkling of villages in between. Meals found us opening with spumantes and finishing with desserts served with a splash of Moscato (which almost made me overlook how good the homemade peach gelato was…almost).

There was the half-day trip to Barolo where we managed to get in a little tasting but still really only scratched the surface of this great wine. We ate way beyond our budget, happened upon tours of local sheep-cheese producers and hazelnut farmers, and, after tasting the difference between a cheese aged for two, four, or eight days, I felt a bit depressed that I had ever shopped at a supermarket.

All this to say that, like its chic cousin France, Italy is an absolute feast for the senses.  The first thing that always hits me upon arrival are the colors. We’ve got our fair share of beauty in the south of France mind you, but everything here is a touch more subdued.  This is Provence after all.  We all expect a bit of quiet and relaxation from the land of Cezanne  and Van Gogh. Traveling to Italy is like have the volume turned up on your day. Everything is a bit louder, brighter, more vivid. I notice it the minute I see those multicolored palazzos, red Vespas, and rolling green hills.  Even in the relatively reserved Piedmont, Italy is life in technicolor.

So while I’m dreaming of my next trip, I’ve got over 900 photos snapped in Piedmont to remind me of why we keep coming back to this enigmatic, complex, but forever beautiful country. That, and the ten bottles of wine we hauled over the border, might just help me get through the waiting until the next rendezvous with fair Italia.