Truffles ….. museums and a day out in Alba

The city of Alba has much to offer especially between October and November during the truffle festival.

And here I have to confess I have never eaten a truffle, which according to one source is " is a fruiting body of fungi belonging to the Tuber genus that carries out its entire life cycle underground (hypogeum). 

It must necessarily live in symbiosis with arboreal plants to produce the precious sporocarp.

The Alba White Truffle has a globular shape, often flattened and irregular, with a pale yellow or even ocher peridium".*

Which leads me to the 90th International Festival of the White Truffle in the city of Alba which runs from October 10th into November.

Now truffles cost an arm and a leg, and are well beyond my price range, but that doesn’t mean you can’t go and look at them.

And if you live in Varese, just a bit north of Milan there are several alternative routes.  

The train will take just over four hours, the coach a lot longer, and by car you can be there in two hours.

The train is always my preferred way of doing it, and that involves a train from Varese to Milan, and then via Turin to Alba, which is far superior to the tortuous journey by bus which demands four changes.

But once in Alba there is much to see, including the truffles, a stunning range of wines, a heap of museums, and historic buildings and of course bits of the old Roman town.

Although the Roman bit is really confined to a bit of the fortified gate and some marble and mosaics, leaving most of us a choice of heading straight for the truffles, with a sly look at the wines, and on the way taking in a range of biscuits being sold by street traders.

That said there is only so much time you can spend on looking at lumps of fungi which command prices ranging from 70€ to 240€, and these were only the ones on offer in the open air market.

So, on balance the day was less about truffles and more the scenery we encountered on the way, the city itself and traditional “bite to eat” at a modest but particularly good restaurant.

Now there was much on the menu and although truffles were "off"  in their absence there was a shedload of interesting things, including a take on beef and two veg, a wonderful selection of pasta, and a variety of puddings, some of which came with that bright yellow Italian custard which looks and tastes so perfect.

Location; Alba

Pictures; Alba on a truffle day out, from the collection of Paolo Balzano

*90 Fiera Internazionale Tartufo Bianco D' Alba,   https://www.fieradeltartufo.org/fiera-del-tartufo/