Offered October 15 - December 1, 2010 (based on availability)
Striking it RICH - literally!!
One of the highlights of our visit to Italy was truffle hunting in Emilia-Romagna, in the countryside just outside of Bologna.
As you may know, late October and November is truffle hunting season in Northern Italy. People from all over the world travel to Italy during this time to see if they can find some of the prized white truffles for themselves, just as we did.
The weather was perfect in late Oct - the sun was out, the temperature was warm enough for light jackets and jeans and we were off! So, we loaded the car with the dogs, walking sticks and a special tool used to carefully dig the truffles out of the soil unscathed, should we be lucky enough to find some of the precious white truffles that are so famously expensive and sought out by the top chefs in the world.
THE find of the day!!
We were lucky enough to have a 10 year old experienced truffle hunting dog with us, who really did all of the work. We weren't even off the trail 2 minutes before she found the prize of the day - an ENORMOUS white truffle (pictured above). Fortunately, the dog was well trained not to eat the truffles - but of course Andrea the truffle hunter did have a bag full of goodies to reward her for finding them for us!
Finding just one truffle this size (think baseball) is considered to be an amazing day but we would soon find out that we had the good fortune of a perfect combination of the phase of the moon and the recent rains and it was exactly what we needed to have a hugely successful day of truffle hunting - Andrea said it was a near record day, and certainly the best so far in 2009.
Freshly fallen chestnuts ready for picking!
As we slowly made our way back to the walking paths with our hidden treasures,, we stopped along the way and picked freshly fallen chestnuts off the ground from the abundance of chestnut in Northern Italy.
Our lovely hosts for the day
Shaving tool to slice truffles over pasta
And as with nearly all of our excursions, we headed back for a delicious meal with the family - filled with good food, good friends and good wine - it was a truly magical day and we hope you'll consider booking one for yourself in 2010.
