We’re off today for a rather varied trip to England and Italy: a few days walking along the South West Coast Path in England, a few days in London with Andrew, Emily, Nathaniel, and Alex, and several days in the Langhe in northwestern Italy where we’ll celebrate our 45th anniversary (two years late) with the whole clan: in addition to the London crew, Sarah, Dan, Vivi, Ingrid, Ariel, and Daniel. First stage takes us to NY to have an early Father’s Day dinner with Andrew, Emily, and the boys, then on to JFK for a night in a hotel before our 8 AM departure for London.
So maybe taking the day flight from JFK wasn’t the best idea. We started well on Saturday, with an early Father’s Day dinner with Andrew, Emily, and the boys. The restaurant, Flex Mussels on the Upper East Side, was good but frenetic: the usual NY scene: too many tables, too many strollers, etc. To say nothing of the absurd prices.
We knew we were being gouged for a hotel at JFK, but the Marriott Courtyard was pretty dismal nonetheless. At least the shuttle ran on time.
Check in at Virgin Atlantic at 6 AM on Sunday morning seemed very easy…and it was until we made the hike to the Clear gate and were turned back because our TSA Pre status wasn’t marked on our boarding passes. Rather than brave the now very long lines at Virgin Atlantic, we used the Clear line without TSA, which worked out OK. The world certainly looked better with a good sized Peet’s C0ffee in hand.
The flight was actually very easy: it is a huge plane and the seats (and armrests) are pretty narrow, but the people on either side of us were nice and respectful of our space. And the food was actually OK: a nice English breakfast, and a mozzarella and tomato sandwich for lunch. Although we found it mildly annoying, the age of the entertainment system was actually hilarious. It still had bizarre iPod connectors and a touchscreen from hell.
Our luck seemed to continue when we landed: we flew through the border check and were looking for our driver within fifteen minute of landing. And looking…and looking…
After somewhat predictable communication problems (our English SIM cards needed new profiles; the BT pay phones were broken) and a very long wait, we found our driver–with the help of a very nice young man at the Checked Luggage counter, who let us use his cell–and checked into our hotel in Oxford about 10:30. The Cotswolds Lodge Hotel is old, but with lots of British character…and tiny rooms to match. No food was to be had, but they did have chips and nuts in the bar!
So that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes our coverage of traveling to the UK.
After far too little sleep, we headed down toward Oxford’s town center and soon found a nice small tea and coffee shop, where we had a light bite and some caffein. Our cell phones were still not working, so we struck out even further into the town center: onto the Cornmarket, a large pedestrian shopping street. Once inside a Vodafone outlet, a very nice young Rumanian woman explained that someone in London had sold us SiM cards from a Vodafone subsidiary intended for kids. Great! So we purchased new cards and got new numbers and hustled back to the hotel where our good friend Andrew D. was picking us up.
We were soon rolling…and stopping…and rolling…and crawling through British traffic on our way to the South Coast. Today’s plan was a bit curvy: we drove to the village of Worth Matravers, where Sue and I were lodging in a B&B, left Andrew’s car in the parish car park, and called a cab to take us to the actual start of the walk in Kimmeridge Bay.
We frankly didn’t know what to expect on this section of the South West Coast Path. It could be little more than a slog, or it might be glorious!
We picked up the path alongside the bay. A steep ascent on stairs brought us to one of the local curiosities: the Clavell Tower.
The tower was built as a lookout and a folly in 1830 by the Reverend John Richards Clavell, who had inherited a vast holding, the Smedmore estate. The tower originally stood much closer to the cliff’s edge, but the shales that make up the cliffs around Kimmeridge are extremely friable, with frequent landslips; on average, the cliffs recede about 13 meters per century. A fundraising campaign and support from the Landmark Trust enable the careful dismantling and reconstruction of the tower in its present position. It is said to be the most sought-after holiday rental property in the UK, with a waiting time of two years. I guess sleeping in the round has some particular appeal to the Brits.
Here we’re leaving the tower behind.
As you can see, we started out with a bit of haze. The first few miles were wonderful, rolling cliff walking, with the sea far below. Here are the merry adventurers early in the day.
This section, though, was unlike anything we had encountered in more than 200 miles on the path. First, perhaps because of property rights, the path clung to the cliff edge, with precipitous drops over the cliffs and into the sea far below. This pleased neither Sue nor especially Andrew, who has more than a touch of vertigo. And much of the path was overgrown. Some of this was just brush, but enough of it was brambles and nettles to be annoying. Here is one of the better sections!
But no one took the plunge, and no one died of bramble or nettle. We loved the feeling of striding high above the sea.
All good things come to an, end though, and the last miles of the day’s walk took us over a couple of large cliffs before casting us at the feet of the Houns Tout, one of the highest (at almost 500 feet) and certainly the steepest cliff we had walked over. That’s it, the white and rather shadowy presence behind two grey cliffs.
Houns Tout takes its name from the family name Houn which dates from Norman times, and Tout which means lookout post; the name therefore literally means the lookout post of Houn.
As we began the climb, the views back over the fields opened up.
Here are the boys in various postures on the ascent.
And here are a couple of shots from the top of the cliff.
That’s Saint Aldheim’s Head across the inlet known as Chapman’s Pool.
The descent was just about as much fun as the ascent: 130 deep steps down.
From the bottom the path wound around to the left, traversing a couple of large sheep farms and arriving at the bottom of the valley at a place called Hillbottom. In the local dialect, I was knackered. Which was disappointing, since I had prepared for this walk much more conscientiously than the year before. Andrew popped up the last hill and along a road and came back with the car.
Flash forward to relieve anxiety: it turned out that night that I was seriously dehydrated (I woke up twice with leg cramps). It was a hot walk, and I simply hadn’t drunk enough. Lesson learned.
We dropped our bags at our B&B and drove to the village of Kingston where there is a wonderful pub, Scott Arms. We ate out back on their broad lawn with views down the hill to Corfe Castle and on to Poole Bay in the channel.
Corfe Castle was built in the 11th century; it commands a gap on the main road through the region. It was slighted–i.e. its defenses were destroyed–after it fell to a siege by parliamentarian forces in the English Civil War. It is a spectacular ruin!
As we learned, Corfe Castle is at the center of what is called the Isle of Purbeck. It isn’t an island, but rather a peninsula famous for its quaint villages and especially for its Purbeck stone. We were still on the Jurassic Coast, and Purbeck stone is a limestone from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.
And our plan was to walk all the way around the perimeter of the “Isle.”
Now back to the pub. It was pub grub, but well done. Andrew had his usual rigorous meal: lots of plants without dressing! Sue and I shared a delicious mackerel pate; she had scampi, I had fish and chips.
After a very convivial evening, Andrew dropped us at our B&B, the Chiltern Lodge in Worth Matravers. It is the home of a very eccentric couple; David spent many years working in Hong Kong, where he met Ann, his wife. Sue made the mistake of asking what he had done before retirement, and we were regaled with a very long monologue. The house is comfortable enough, but the covid paranoia of the owners makes it a bit intimidating: signs and desensitizer everywhere, masks worn in the house.
Neither of us slept much: we fell prey to second night jet lag. Oh well.
After a very nice English breakfast at Chiltern Lodge, our chauffeur Mr. D. was waiting out front. He dropped us down a road leading to a quarry at seaside and headed back to Oxford, ponies calling. After our goodbyes, we walked down an increasingly rustic road to Winspit Quarry.
Our walk today was to lead us more or less due east along a series of cliffs to a lighthouse, at which point the path turns north toward the Victorian seaside resort of Swanage.
This was one of the spots where the path wasn’t well marked, and we chose what looked like a good variant leading over a series of ledges. This was the remains of the quarry, which had been closed because the cliff had become unstable.
The place was pretty spectacular, with huge cliffs and deep caves dug into the cliff faces; the roofs were supported by piles of quarried stone.
After ten minutes or so, Sue encountered a jagged pile of rocks and, looking over it, said “I’m not going any further.” That was because there was no further to go. We were on the wrong path and retraced our steps to the junction.
The climb up onto the cliff tops was steep but not overly long. As you can see, we had glorious weather today.
We were soon rolling along on the path, walking gently up and down over the clifftops; farms rose, sometimes steeply, on our left. It was some of the easiest, most beautiful walking we had done on the path.
The level walking was briefly interrupted as we walked away from the water along a deep combe. As we found last summer, these little valleys are not just verdant, but bursting with life. Once on the other side, we had a lovely stroll back to the water.
We soon started encountering large flat ledges far below us and perhaps 20 to 40 feet above the sea. The most famous of these is called Dancing Ledge, presumably because it resembles a large dance floor. As we approached the first of these ledges, we were startled to see a woman pushing a bike up from the ledge far below; she was soon followed by a man pushing a second bike. It turned out that they had ridden here from their home 40 km distant, pushed the bikes down a precipitous path, and camped overnight–sleeping in a cave during a thunderstorm. They were soon mounted up and on their way!
At Dancing Ledge itself, we encountered a large group of older children and teens, each with a life jacket and a helmet. Their guides were taking them down to the ledges to learn coasteering–jumping off ledges into the sea, rock climbing, and exploring caves. Looked like fun! Here is Dancing Ledge itself, with the kids on the way down.
Soon after Dancing Ledge, Anchor Point Lighthouse comes into view, which marks the furthest extension of the eastern coast in this area; from the lighthouse we turned sharply north. Here’s Sue on the approach.
Once past the light, there is a quick but steep ascent onto the cliffs again. The path passes over an abandoned quarry site, with deep caves like the ones we had seen earlier in the day.
Here is the view back to the light.
We found ourselves on a manicured concrete pathway leading up a hill. The path led to Durnstone Castle, a Victorian folly, and to its very welcome tea room. We thought of Vivi and Ingrid as we drank our aranciata! I also had a packet of crisps, just to restore some salt, natch!
The remainder of the path into Swanage was part of a Victorian promenade through the verdant, jungle-like vegetation of the coastal region. It wasn’t the open nature that we had sought, but it was very pleasant.
We were soon descending into Swanage itself through seaside gardens.
And the views over Swanage Bay weren’t bad, either.
We made our way to our B&B for the night, the Robertsbrook Guest House. We had booked the only room available, a “compact double,” which was hilariously tiny. In order to get out of the room, we had to move a pack stored in the only space available: in front of the door. But the bed was comfortable and the shower hot, so who can complain?
We weren’t drowning in dinner choices in Swanage, but the very nice hosts at the B&B directed us to the Ship Inn, where we had really delicious bowls of mussels. Even Sue’s wine, a Trebbiano from Puglia, was a cut above for what one usually finds on the path.
We had both slept long and well, and, although I woke up with a stiff back (probably from two nights of B&B mattresses), we were soon out the door and in search of some coffee. We found a nice Italian place and had a decent cappuccino and a roll.
The logistics of today’s walk were slightly complicated. We had to walk from Swanage to the end of the coast path at South Haven Point, and then make our way via bus or cab back to Swanage in order to pick up our bags. Only then could we think about getting to Wareham, the nearest rail station with links to the national network.
The owners of the B&B couldn’t be nicer: they gave us a door key in case we returned for our bags while they were out. And off we went to the seaside promenade and the start of the last stage of the Coast Path. Our host from the first night in Worth Matravers had advised us not to follow the signs for the coast path as we neared the end of the Swanage beachfront, but to walk on the beach itself, clambering over a series of breakwaters until we reached a stairway leading up the cliff.
And sure enough, this proved to be the way to go. At the top of the stair we found the path…and a large group of high school kids on a school outing. We played leapfrog with them as we rose at first gently and then very steeply up onto the first cliff north of Swanage.
Once up onto the long ridge that led to the cliff, the ascent again turned gradual as we rose on grassy paths. At the top we found a large group of (other) senior citizens; we had seen them ahead of us, ascending very slowly. They were being serenaded by two young men with lovely voices singing ballads. We stopped for a bit to listen before walking on. The ridge opened up from the top, and we started getting views northward toward the end of our walk at South Haven Point. That’s it at the end of the long arc of beaches.
We then made a long, sweeping descent to the best-known feature of the region, Old Harry Rocks.
This chalk cliff, with a sea stack and a stump just offshore, marks the end of the Jurassic Coast. The drops from the paths around and onto the rocks are precipitous, and I gave Sue’s nerves a break and stayed away from the edge.
As steep as the ascent from the south had been, the descent along the northern side of the ridge was long and gentle. The village of Studland sits at the bottom and marks the start of a long series of lovely beaches.
For the last couple of miles the path actually follows the beach; we were afraid that we would be forced to walk through deep sand, but, once on the beach, we walked at waters edge, taking advantage of the damp, hard packed sand.
Looking back we had a last view of Old Harry Rocks.
Truth to tell, this section soon became somewhat monotonous; even the passage through the naturist section of the beach provided little in the way of diversion. But we were soon rounding South Haven Point and making for the ferry crossing that marks the end of the South West Coast Path. As we approached, the ferry, carrying our bus, left the Sandbanks pier across the way; we barely had time to snap a couple of pictures at the marker for the end of the path and run for the bus stop.
When we started out, we had been unsure of the beauty of this three-day walk; we mostly wanted to finish this end of the path after having stopped short last summer. But we can wholeheartedly recommend the walk from Worth Matravers to South Haven Point. It is varied, beautiful, and invigorating! The only (slight) downside is that the infrastructure isn’t quite up to what we found on the long Jurassic Coast walk or in Cornwall: lodgings are limited to B&B’s and restaurant choices are largely limited to pubs. But that, in the end, has little to do with the pure joy of walking free above the waves.
The timing of the end of the walk was incredible; we climbed aboard the double decker bus with an open deck on top, and enjoyed the brief ride to Swanage. Once there, our bags were soon in hand. Unfortunately, the cab company that promised a car right away failed to deliver, despite repeated calls. Incredibly enough, the kind lady from the B&B offered to take us to Wareham rail station herself. Really above and beyond!
A very pleasant train ride brought us to Waterloo station and we were soon on the tube on our way to Leicester Square and our hotel, The Londoner, where we had stayed in November. We had a wonderful (but very expensive) Japanese meal at the hotel; they run a playful version of a Japanese Izakaya on the top floor. The Londoner’s version is Japanese tapas; we shared lobster tempura, a wonderful kohlrabi salad, beef “tacos,” and an extraordinary sea bass carpaccio. The view wasn’t bad either, we looked southeast from the eighth floor, with the Houses of Parliament and Westminister Abbey not far away.
By 9:30 Andrew, Emily and the kids were in the lobby. We had a rough go of it trying to settle the boys while Andrew and Emily grabbed a bite; when we left the room at midnight, we were pretty sure Nathaniel would stay asleep, but with Alex, all bets were off!
Warning: not a lot of tourism in the next few days, but a lot of kids! Now if only Viv and Ingrid could be with us, too!
We got off to a predictably slow start, as the boys slept in after a tough travel day.
We had them set a table for six in the breakfast room, but the crew never arrived!
Once we got going, the boys were incredible: good m0ods, lots of curiosity. We fulfilled one of Nathaniel’s fantasies right away, boarding a London red double decker. It was a short ride–down Haymarket from Piccadilly Circus, around Trafalgar Square, and through Whitehall to the Westminster Pier–but it was a good start to the day (if 1 PM counts as starting the day).
We boarded an Uber boat (Uber seems to have taken over the Thames Clipper river service) for the trip to Greenwich. Nathaniel and I had watched several–okay, many–videos of this trip, so he knew most of the sights along the river: the National Gallery, Millennium Bridge and Tate Modern, the Shard, the Gherkin, and Tower Bridge.
The boat picks up speed past Tower Bridge, and we were soon docking at Canary Wharf and continuing on to Greenwich.
Nathaniel had been excited about seeing Cutty Sark, a British Tea Clipper built in 1869 and at one time the fastest ship in the world. She has been in dry dock in Greenwich since 1954.
While Nathaniel, Emily, and Andrew went aboard to explore the ship, Alex, Sue and I took a stroll through the grounds of the Old Royal Naval College. For those of you hungering and thirsting after detail, I have a blog post on the ensemble of buildings: https://mountainlight.blog/on-the-ball/
Nathaniel’s takeaway from the Cutty Sark was that there were real, actual firemen on board (doing an inspection).
We all returned to the beautiful space between the wings of the Wren / Hawksmoor buildings.
Nathaniel, Emily, and Andrew popped into the Chapel to see the painted ceilings, but we didn’t go up to the Queen’s House, let alone to the Royal Observatory: too many steps with a baby carriage.
We were soon aboard the light rail taking us to the Bank station of the tube, and from there back to the west end. So Nathaniel had pulled off the London trifecta in one day: bus, boat, and tube!
Andrew had reserved a table at Dishoom, a restaurant that bills itself as serving Bombay street food. Years ago, Sue and I had eaten with our friend Pat G. at the original Dishoom in Covent Garden; there are now six of them, and we were eating at the Carnaby branch. The food is really terrific: we shared chicken Tikka, Murgh Malai, and a couple of portions of the spectacular Salli Botti, a braised lamb dish served with roti.
The boys were doing remarkably well so far, and, after a quick return to the hotel for a diaper change, we strolled to St. James Park. Nathaniel was enthralled with the pelicans, as I hoped he’d be, and both boys got a chance to run around a bit and burn off some energy before bed.
I won’t describe bedtime, dear reader, because I wouldn’t like to spoil your day!
for its elevators! Or such is the opinion of the young art critic NFJ.
The gang actually got going in plenty of time to share the hotel’s wonderful breakfast buffet. Nathaniel even enjoyed their weird idea of an American pancake (think pan-cake).
Soon enough it was off to St. Paul’s. After a quick ride on the tube, we did a circumnavigation of the great cathedral. Emily and Sue agreed to slake Nathaiel’s thirst for churches–which is very real–and take him inside, but he freaked out a bit…who knows why?
We learned why as the day went on: both boys were exhausted and jet lagged…understandably.
We walked across the Millennium Bridge, which was a highlight for the younger set.
And that was the last picture any of us took…we did go into the Tate Modern and walk through one interesting selection from their collection (post minimalism), but Nathaniel was more interested in the various elevators than the boring stuff on the wall.
We set off to get a bite in the boy’s bellies, but Alex promptly fell asleep, and the parents didn’t want to take him into a restaurant…or into the tube. So we set off on a forced march from east to west, finally getting some chicken at one of the umpteen Nando’s chicken joints in London.
Back at the hotel, the boys were instructed that it was quiet time, while Grandma and Grandpa had quiet time at the hotel bar. We encountered a totally memorable character there. Andrew had been born in Uganda in 1979, the year in which Idi Amin was deposed as dictator. His family had come to London when he was thirteen. After taking a university degree in cinema, he began to support himself in the hospitality industry, alternating between earning money and walking England’s long distance paths. When Sue mentioned that we were just off the South West Coast Path, he nearly jumped over the bar. We met him on his last day at The Londoner: he had quit to walk all 600 miles of the path with a friend! Quite the raconteur, Andrew continues to write and make films; we can well imagine him as an accomplished storyteller.
Dinner was taken at one of London’s more illustrious restaurants: the Spaghetti House, just around the corner from the hotel. Andrew pronounced it “the most perfect restaurant he’d ever been in.” And it was indeed just perfect for an infant and a toddler, who sprayed spaghetti and tomato sauce indiscriminately over the adults.
Today’s activity, chosen by the younger set, was a visit to the London Transport Museum. Nathaniel chose to transport himself to the Transport Museum via Double Decker Bus with his mama, while the rest of the crew strolled with Alex. Here are a couple of generations waiting for the bus crowd.
The Transport Museum is very well done, interesting for young and old alike.
Nathaniel was intrigued with some of the horse-drawn conveyances from the 19th century.
He’s holding his transport ticket: you punch it at each station, ca. every 50 years.
Emily peeled off after the museum to see a friend, while we proceeded to the Nando’s chicken joint in Covent Garden. If you aren’t familiar with this phenomenon–there is a Nando’s on seemingly every corner in central London–Nando’s is a restaurant founded in South Africa by partners from Portugal and South Africa; they serve flame broiled peri-peri style chicken (peri-peri sauce is based on the chili of that name and garlic). The whole place is below ground and thus just a little weird.
The boys needed some quiet time, so we retreated to the hotel. Sue and I then took the little guys out for pizza while the parents had a real meal. We joined the hordes looking for cheap eats on Maiden Lane in Covent Garden and did fairly well in our choice of pizzerias.
On the way home, we took the boys into the Lego store right on Leicester Square. Nathaniel was so excited that he didn’t want to leave, although he was desperate for a bathroom. So Sue brought him to the hotel and then took him back.
Here is the young driver behind the wheel of James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5.
And here he is taking inspiration from some local writer named Shakespeare.
Once the exhausted grandparents handed the boys over, we were seriously ready for a glass of wine!
We got an early start for our 11:20 flight from Gatwick. After our last breakfast at the hotel, we hoofed it down the hill to the Embankment station, tubing it to Victoria, and trying to make the Gatwick Express…which we missed by 30 seconds, after I was already through the turnstile. The woman at the turnstile said there was another train…in two minutes…from another track. Off we sprinted, only to find that my ticket wouldn’t work since I had passed through one turnstile. After a frantic explanation, I was allowed through an open gate…and onto the waiting train.
The rest was a piece of cake. Gatwick is small and very well organized, and Easy Jet works pretty well if you don’t mind being herded onto the plane like cattle. We flew pretty low, with some spectacular views of the Alps as we approached Milan. At Malpensa, we had a new experience: landing at terminal two, which is more than two miles from terminal one–where our niece Ariel and her husband Daniel were waiting for us. After a mere 25 minutes in the broiling sun, the “frequent” shuttle bus bore us to our destination. Once there, we were in our Avis rental–a pretty spacious Renault–within minutes.
Ariel and Daniel hadn’t slept much on the plane, and snoozed most of the way to the Langhe. I had thought that Sarah and Dan and the girls–who were on the same Emirates flight as Ariel and Daniel–would be at our rented house well before us, but they stopped on the way, and arrived at more or less the same time. Google Maps struggles with the roads and institutions in the Langhe, as the single track roads rise and fall over the steep hillsides. The road on which our house sits, Via Val Bera, isn’t even on Google Maps. We made a wrong turn downhill, which is always an adventure here, since there are very few places to turn. Once back up on the main road, though, we made a good guess as to the correct turning, and found ourselves on a steep curve with a sheer drop of forty feet into a vineyard. Driving here is truly not for the faint of heart–and we hadn’t seen anything yet. Once past this rather scary start, we were soon descending steeply down the driveway to Casince La Galeisa, our home away from home.
The owners are Australian; they’ve done an extraordinary renovation of an old farmhouse in the middle of the vineyards.
The place has six bedrooms, so Sarah and Dan and the girls and Andrew and Emily and the boys each got two. The rooms are extremely comfortable and the bathrooms modern and beautiful. The best part, though, was the outdoors: on a broad level area overlooking a deep valley with vineyards climbing every slope are a beautiful pool and an arbor-shaded terrace with a dining table large enough for twelve. We would recommend this place to anyone.
The day had gone well for most of the party, but we learned after we arrived that Andrew and Emily had experienced a transit day from hell–with an infant and a toddler. ITA (the former Alitalia, which didn’t have much of a reputation itself, had been bought by the Italian government…with predictable results) had lost one of their bags, with all of Emily’s clothing and most of the baby infrastructure. Once in their car and on the Autostrada toward Turin, they came to a dead standstill for a full hour; there had been a serious accident. We had initially thought they would arrive around 8, and planned to meet them at a nearby Osteria. As it turned out, they arrived long after we had returned from dinner. We were confiden that they had little chance of finding the house in the dark, so Sarah and I set out to find them. Sure enough, Google Maps had misdirected them; we found them fairly fast and led them, two exhausted little boys in tow, to the house.
The happy few had proceeded to the little village of Castiglione Tinella, just up the hill from our house. Osteria Verde Rame is just downhill from the main piazza; what a find!
The place is small and charming, the owner exceptionally helpful and friendly, and the food amazing. Besides the Piedmont classics that they do very well–vitello tonnato, agnolotti del plin (tiny ravioli stuffed with meat and vegetables, often rabbit), and carne cruda (a special strain of local veal called fassone that is chopped coarsely and served raw)–they had a feather light but very intense vegetable tart and some incredible braised meats. We drank very well, a lovely golden white from the southern Langhe and then a 2017 Riserva Rabaja from the Produttori del Barbaresco. Although fairly young, this had a beguiling, sexy perfume; it was a silky, complex, very beautiful wine. Oh yes, the prices: appetizers and pasta were 6 euros each, mains 10!
We had brought back pasta and lots of breadsticks from the Osteria, and the latecomers put a good face on a fairly sparse dinner. It understandably took a while to settle the boys, but everyone was tucked in their bed by midnight.
Sue and I got up early to find some of the crew already awake. We jumped in the car and drove to the larger, “downhill” village, Castagnole delle Lanze. Sue did a big shop at the local supermarket while I found a bakery and cleaned them out of Cornetti (marmalade, cream, chocolate, Nutella, you name it, I bought it).
Here we see part of the crew enjoying a cornetto. There is a wonderful dining space beneath an arbor near the pool, and we ate all our meals there.
The kids couldn’t wait to get into the pool; here they are with their favorite playmate, Daniele Roberto Giansante.
Losing a bag with your clothing is surprisingly disorienting, and Emily and Andrew left for the largish town of Asti to do a bit of replacement shopping. The rest of us headed to the town of Treiso (one of the main Barbaresco wine villages) for lunch at the amazing modern restaurant La Ciau del Tornavento. Once again, even though we had lots of kids, they gave us the best table in the house, right up against the wall of glass looking out onto the vineyards.
We once again mixed the Piedmont classics with some unusual choices: Dan and I shared risotto with a light dusting of cocoa…and a big lobe of foie gras on top! Several of us had sweetbreads, and Sarah and Daniel had a fish called Amberjack in a light tempura-like robe. We again drank very well, with a bottle of local chardonnay followed by a 2014 Cigliuti Barbaresco from the Seraboella vineyard. It was lovely, bigger and more tannic than the Rabaja from the night before but perhaps not as perfumed or complex…not that we were complaining. We were too stuffed for dessert, but they brought us five extraordinary bites; we all agreed that the mocha eclair won the derby, but the others were close.
After a day of travel, everyone was ready to just relax, so there was a good deal more swimming in the late afternoon.
We had a long, lovely evening on the terrace; some of the crew even had some pasta and tomato salad! It had been around 92 in the valleys, and a bit cooler up here, but it cooled off beautifully as the evening went on.
