Holed Up Back in Cherasco, Piemonte

Zagan the motorhome is wet, wet, wet. The rain’s falling like dreadlocks here in Cherasco, north-west Italy, so we’re holed up in the town’s official sosta. It’s the second time we’ve been here, slotted in a quiet and well-kept parking area close to the centre of town (N44.64913 E7.85450). The last time we were here, three and half years ago (wow, feels like yesterday!), the sosta was free and we were amazed to find unlimited electricity being handed out for nowt. The parking and services are still free (and the water remains turned on in winter, thanks Cherasco!), although the electricity’s now charged according to use (seems more than fair, and we’re charging our batteries as I type).

The official motorhome sosta in Cherasco

“Where shall we go tomorrow?” Typically our planning is done day-to-day, a level of flexibility which I have to admit, I soak up like a drug. The place we end up is driven by a whole bunch of factors, but today’s choice was made for us by the weather. Our initial aim was to head for Fossano, an hour’s run south of Chieri, and off we tumbled, elbows-in down a few thin, ditch-sided B roads. Quickly the muddied fields around us painted themselves a bright, flat white. Yesterday’s rain had fallen as snow here, but the roads had all been ploughed and gritted, and remained easily passable.

February in Piedmont. Explains all those snow chain signs we keep seeing…

We’re into Big Wine Country here. Barolo is just to the south-east of us.

Easily passable but for the odd maniac driver. Well, maniac’s probably a bit strong, but whoever was driving this car shouldn’t have been (the little red devil below). On a 90kph road, it drifted around like a snowflake, over the white line, back again, brakes flashing on and off, all at about 35kph. I kept my distance; a head-on collision with an oncoming car wasn’t beyond the question, plus he squeezed overtakers from time to time, and if the worse happened, I didn’t fancy the wreckage hitting us.

Only the second time I’ve come across a car behaving so erratically in ten years of continental driving. Maybe drunk, maybe terrified of the snow, I dunno.

When we made it into Fossano, the mucky white stuff was piled thigh-deep alongside the roads by the plough. With no obvious place to stay, we’d popped a central car park into the sat nav, and followed it to the point it pointed us towards what appeared a little too central an area – ZTL central. These old Italian towns were never designed for cars, never mind big fat motorhomes, and it’s easy to literally get stuck if you try and get to close to the heart of ’em. ZTLs are used to try and avoid this happening – Zona Traffico Limitato – which you drive into at your peril – of either causing mayhem or receiving a fine, depending which way the wind’s blowing. Spotting a motorhome services sign, pointing in an ambiguous direction, we made a half-hearted attempt to find it. We failed and chickened out when given the choice of trying to stop somewhere. Every free space was piled with snow and we pinged off north again, quickly deciding to head for a safe port in a storm – here in Cherasco.

Surrounded by high piles of snow, which the endless rain seems powerless to melt, we’ve holed up in Zagan with the heating on, reading, watching TV, cooking, generally chilling out. I’ve taken a quick walk into the town, which is as serene and well-kept as I recall, and eyed up the home-made gelato in the quiet cafes. The weather forecast says another day of poor weather, then a blast of sunshine. I suspect we’ll sit tight tomorrow before heading for the hill towns to our south-east (thanks Rose for the suggestions, always appreciated and always spot-on). La Morra, Dogliani (Charlie’s favourite), Novello, Baralo and Alba are all circled on the map, waiting for the orange globe to make an appearance.

Sunshine is a comin’!

Cheers, Jay

P.S. I blew a candle out earlier, watched the smoke rise, and wondered if it’d set off the smoke alarm. It didn’t, but when I checked the alarm, I found it only had two of the three batteries in it. Doh! It’s been like that since we bought the van. Scary.