Déjà vu in Alba, Italy

Zagan the motorhome is in a very peaceful place, parked just outside the cemetery in San Damano D’Asti (N44.82704, E8.05850). You might think it a strange place to park for the night, but we found it in our book of sostas, it has a service point and will be quieter than the parking we were in close to the centre of Alba.

This morning we were woken by the sound of the school car park coming to life, a cacophony of motorbike and car engines and numerous ciao‘s. As our alarm went off the car park fell silent, our usual getting up time being the same as the start of the school day. As I got dressed there was a sign that it was time to move on from the scenic views of the Le Langhe hills, I was down to my last pair of clean undies – time to head for a city.

Because of our early start, we found ourselves parking up in Alba (N44.70365, E8.02846) by 9.30am and as Zagan’s door opened we were greeted by the most wonderful aroma – warm chocolate. We were parked by the Ferrero factory and manufacture was already in full swing. For every 100 hazelnuts grown on Earth, 15 end up in a Ferrero product, but the aroma mixed with the warm chocolate this morning smelt like oranges to me. Maybe they are working on a new product or maybe it was on of the other production lines? Ferrero don’t just make Ferrero Rocher and Nutella, but also Kinder and Tic Tacs.

As we walked into the town we joked about the time I tried to get into a Ferrero factory, they were having none of it, but we couldn’t remember where it was, it was certainly somewhere in Italy though. The wide busy street we walked along was halted by a small roundabout, one of the lanes off it led down a narrow one way road between the old brick buildings. Following it into the streets of the old town, things looked familiar. As we reached the main square it looked very familiar and reaching the tourist office we turned to each other – we have been here before.

Towers in Alba, there are about four left but used to be many more

Feeling bad that neither of us remembered having visited here, we consoled ourselves with the knowledge that it was nearly four years ago, we’ve since spent about four months in Italy, often moving each day and we rarely remember what day it is or what we had for tea the night before (cassoulette). Walking back into the tourist office it was like we were only here last week and the staff were just as helpful now as they were then. Sadly the Ferrero factory still doesn’t do tours we were informed, and they didn’t think the original Ferrero shop was in Alba (although we’ve since found a BBC article implying that it was). Still there were free Ferrero chocolates on the counter, and five minutes later we left armed with a map showing us the two self-service laundries in town, with their opening hours, and we set off to see if we could park near either of them.

We nipped for a quick look around the cathedral, which was busy being cleaned by an army of ladies toting hoovers and dusters as their weapons, so for once we didn’t have to tip toe around in silence.

The ceiling of the cathedral is a beautiful stary blue sky

Silver mask made for the head of a saint, strangely the head has been lost?!

The walk to the laundries took us down the main shopping street, so we took the opportunity for a nose in the stores. Alba is a foodie place famous for its white truffles and close proximity to the Barolo vines. We didn’t have the budget to stretch to either but it was nice to window shop and look at some of the cool artwork in the windows of the galleries.

Now that is a sweet shop

I love this lamp

Finding the laundries it was clear that Zagan wasn’t going to squeeze into any of the on-street parking around them, so we decided there was only one thing for it – the laundry lug. We split the massive pile into three large bags and walked the kilometre back to the closest laundry of the two. A couple of hours later Zagan’s cupboards were filled with sweet-smelling clothes, and I again have a choice of what to wear tomorrow.

We could have stayed the night in the car park we were in, but other tasks needed doing today – we were out of milk and a few other essentials so time to hit a real Italian supermarket (ie not a Lidl). We headed north to ‘Big Shop’ which has dedicated parking for campers and vans (N44.72130, E8.00897), grabbed our bags for life and ventured in like excited children. First stop was to see if the book department had sosta guides for Italy, so as I wheeled the trolly around Jay had a browse through the camper magazines – a habit he has in our local Sainsburys. Spotting two fellas staring along the magazine aisle, arms folded but laughing and joking with each other, I turned my trolly around to see what they were looking at, it was Jay. I wheeled past them and carried on looking in the book section while they stayed put, eventually they were really starting to annoy me, so I walked over to Jay and suggested we move on. He’d spotted one of the fellas and assumed he was an ‘undercover’ security guard. If they were undercover, they were very, very bad at it as he happened to pass us in each aisle we went into.

The security guards attitude really annoyed me and I wish I had known how to ask him if there was a problem. With him lurking and smirking we really didn’t enjoy our shop, that and the fact that there was no cheap beer. We were so fed up that we didn’t even buy any biscuits which is not like us at all, instead we grabbed what we needed, walked up and down every aisle to give our man some exercise then paid up and left with a bad feeling towards the place. We’ve since looked up where the nearest Lidl is and we’re off there tomorrow to cheer ourselves up.

Ju x

PS Cemeteries in Italy aren’t like those in the UK, they are little walled towns often just outside the main town and the dead either have their own houses or at least a hole in the wall to call their own.

PPS – trying to train Charlie to snuffle out truffles, no luck so far