Italy

Piazza Duomo in Alba, Italy, is a fine dining restaurant that has held three Michelin stars for more than a decade and is on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. With all of those accolades, we knew we had to see what all the hype is about during our recent trip to Piedmont.

It all started with us setting our alarms for 3:45AM our time in order to log on precisely when reservations opened: 10AM Italy time, 3 months ahead of time. The restaurant releases all reservations for the entire month at once, and the release dates are published on their website.

Having secured our spot, the next choice was to select the menu that we wanted to have. Piazza Duomo offers two different food tasting menus, one a 6-course option called “The Journey,” and the second a 10-course menu called simply “Barolo,” meant to pair with Barolo wines, naturally.

When we made our booking we weren’t sure if we wanted to focus so laser-like on Barolo pairings, so we initially booked The Journey. However, when the restaurant reached out a few days before our visit we panicked and changed to the Barolo menu. 

We are glad we made the switch.

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Ristorante Borgo Sant’Anna is a Michelin-starred restaurant in the Barolo region of Italy. The restaurant’s picturesque setting amidst the rolling hills covered with vineyards and the creative use of regional ingredients combine to make this a solid option if you’re exploring Piedmont.

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If you are planning a trip to Piedmont and are wondering how many days make for a good visit, we have some bad news for you- there is no easy answer here.

Part of this is simply that Piedmont is a vast region in northern Italy running from France in the west to Switzerland in the north and almost all the way to the Ligurian Sea in the south. The other part is that Piedmont offers numerous unique attractions which you may or may not be interested in (e.g. wine vs nature vs cities).

So in this one, we thought we would break down a few of the most popular reasons why you may visit Piedmont and share ideas of how many days you would need in each spot!

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I have rented cars worldwide to drive around and experience the top attractions in numerous countries. From Italy, Belgium, and Iceland in Europe, South Korea in Asia, Mauritius and the Seychelles in Africa, I’ve had the pleasure of taking a car out in a new country on many occasions.

On a trip to Italy (for my third rental there), a unique line item in my car rental contract caught my eye and gave me a moment of concern: “The driver license must have been issued by authorized authorities at least 1 year(s) before the date of the commencement of the rental.”

While I have been driving for 20+ years, I had one problem- my license was recently renewed and did not show its original issue date. All things being equal, it looked like my license was issued just three months before.

Cue panic.

Ultimately, this small detail ended up being a non-issue, and my car was rented to me without question. In this one, I wanted to break down why this one exists and what documents you may want to have with you to protect yourself in the unlikely event that you are questioned.

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