| The Bowes clan were in town and we took them to visit one of our favourite regions - the Langhe, where some of the best wine in Italy is grown and produced. We started our day with a tour of the Oddero wine cellars - their huge barrels used for ageing the Barolo wine.
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| And after the tour, you have to sample their wine of course.
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| It's a serious business!
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| There probably are differences between the 6 different wines, but it's hard to put your finger on it.
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| Then we moved on to the matter of lunch. Which was the usual affair of losing count of the number of courses, being stunned by how delicious each was and, despite being so completely full you can't eat another thing, ordering an additional cheese course because they look so amazing!
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| Everyone enjoyed the meal...
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| ...and cleaned their plates!
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| The setting was spectacular, with views out over the vineyards...
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| ...as one sampled the local grappa!
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| We encountered a local game of Pantalera taking place, which was exceedingly difficult to follow. Everyone delighted in trying to explain the rules to us...
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| ...including the referee, who was obviously not too occupied by the match to break off and talk to us. The game was something like team tennis, with 2 nets (one for each team), which moved depending on where the point was won.
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| Oh and you had to serve onto a piece of roof which was positioned at one side of the pitch!
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| The whole town was out to enjoy it and, it seemed, discuss exactly what the rules were.
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| Every so often the game was delayed as traffic had to cross the pitch!
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| The church tower in La Morra... which we climbed.
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| The view from the top of the tower.
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| Alessandro's parents waving up to us.
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| John and Anna suffered the effects of an enormous lunch and were unable to do much else for a lot of the afternoon!
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| The nearby town of Serralunga d'Alba.
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| And then on to the town of Barolo.
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| Which features a corkscrew museum!
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| A walk among the vines finished off a richly satisfying day in the Langhe.
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| The following day we headed out to Venaria Reale, a baroque palace of the Savoys.
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| Where we enjoyed a picnic before an open air concert of the 12 cellos of the Berlin Philharmonica.
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| And afterwards, the spectacular show put on by the fountains in the courtyard.
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| For their final evening in Italy, we dined in style with Joy and Chris at a restaurant local to our house.
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| Their last day, and we drove up to the Sacra di San Michele - a monastery at the mouth of the Susa valley, which was supposedly inspiration for Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose".
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| Once up there, we were treated to an amazing double rainbow, more than 180° and framing part of the monastry.
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