Autumn 2022

Agripassione near Asti, Italy - 20 September 2022

We like a good cathedral door

It was very dark and quiet last night, so think we both felt better this morning after a better night’s sleep. It was only 2° outside this morning, so Tintin ventured out of bed to put the heating on. Last night we’d switched the water pump off, as if it gets below 4° in the garage it will dump all the water. All was ok, so we had breakfast in bed, showered, and were off.

Tintin driving today - about 2-1/2 hours. Mixture of driving - leaving the Alps, so mountainous - but not as steep as yesterday.

Only saw a couple of cows with bells, and read later that they stay up in the mountains until the end of September.

Then a first for us, tried out the autostrada. It only cost €7.30 (in three payments) - but saved about an hours driving time. Whilst the surface is ok, certainly not the best!

So Dave is back to where he originated from. Mobilvetta is part of the Trigano group, from Siena I think. What I don’t understand is why he’s not put together a little more robustly - knowing the state of the roads! Apparently they get worse going South. He’ll have been shaken apart by then! Roads surfaces in towns and villages don’t seem to be a priority.

Tintin said he’s never seen his garage in such disarray after the drive here, the pipe from the sog unit came off, and we noticed another screw cover outside is missing - obviously shaken off!

Another first for us, we signed up to Agricamper (€35pa) an app for finding Agripassione places to stay in Italy for free, with the general understanding that you buy produce from the farm or vineyard you stay overnight at.

Tintin did really well getting here, Colin the Co-pilot was playing silly whatsits again - Henry wasn’t talking to us, sometimes our direction arrow was upwards, sometimes not, and the same as yesterday, it didn’t zoom in so we couldn’t see the hairpin bends before we approached. We haven’t changed any settings - isn’t technology wonderful!

Some of the roads seem quite narrow for two way traffic, especially approaching this farm. After a very steep 300m road, we were greeted by Alessandro. Let’s just say he is learning English better than we are learning Italian!

We put the awning out, and sat outside and had lunch. Didn’t really know what to do. Wandered into the shop and saw Alessandro again - there is loads of produce to buy, mainly jams, salts, sauces and some wine - saw a red Asti that we may have to buy tomorrow. They stopped serving food on 10 September.

We got the bikes out and cycled into Asti (just over 6 miles round trip).

Asti has a population of about 76,000 - so not that big. Not sure how we’ll cope in places like Florence or Rome, as I can take enough photos here!

We wandered around for a couple of hours just taking it all in. There were 20 places of interest on the map, and we saw them all, well the outside mainly. I’m working my way up to descriptions for later in the blog - for today - photos will have to suffice!

Although, we went into the Santa Maria Assunta cathedral - and just wow! It has good big doors - we all like a big, solid door! The ceilings looked amazing.

We stopped off for our first gelato in Italy. Tintin had a Pino Pinguolo, which was a bit like Nutella, and I had a Moscato Di Asti - you could smell the alcohol! (€5).

Asti was a very pleasant place to walk around - nice to see lots of people. A few designer shops too! In France we often timed it wrong, and all the shops were shut.