To Ceva: A final ride in Piemonte

October 5, 2022

We chose our next stay in the small medieval town of Ceva in part because of its access to routes heading south to the Mediterranean. Unfortunately, the few places where you could stay in town were full for the Thursday night. Looking further along our planned route beyond Ceva , we found B&B Cascina Grattinera. But the stated check in on booking.com was shown as 12 until 3 pm. This seemed potentially a bit early for us. B&B Cascina Grattinera has their own website and communicating with the host via whatsapp, we were told that 3pm was necessary as she would be at work after that time. We knew that we could easily make the 40km ride by 3pm but we would need to focus on our start time in the morning to allow for us to visit Ceva before carrying on the last few kilometres to the B&B. As you may recognize, finding places to stay can be time consuming and not always easy in some smaller towns. Pat does a great job locating and booking rooms for us each night.

Breakfast at Albergo della Ceramica was great as we were once again treated to scrambled eggs with ham. The standard fare of meat, cheese and bread as mainstays at most breakfasts gets tiring after several weeks on the road.

We were watching the clock for a 9 am departure and noticed that the weather was much cooler at this time of the morning. No kidding! It is about 12 degrees and at this time of year the Piemonte has a damp, foggy feeling. The coolness was soon remedied when we began our first climb about 5 km from town. At the very top of the hill Pat found a shop that would make us a sandwich (with meat and cheese but we added a tomato) that we could take for our lunch.

The surrounding area below Vasco. The fog limits visibility but at the same time provides an interesting aspect to the land scape.

Pat has a keen eye for finding places where we can get something to ensure we do not get caught without our necessary fuel.

Another view from Vasco as we head down the hill. Pretty area.

Scott`s ride in his younger days looked a bit like this - tarp and all.

Before heading down, we put on our jackets to stay warm on the quick downhill that would ultimately lead us back to the busier SS26. This divided highway was okay but at the first opportunity we turned off it and began to climb. This seems to be the choice - ride busier highways or climb hills into the smaller communities. It is an easy choice for us. But soon we were back down the hill from Vicoforte and we once again joined the SS26 for a fast downhill until we could leave it for the last time. We reached Ceva as the noon bells were chiming, in plenty of time to see the town and meet our check in requirement.

Mombasiglio castle looks spooky in the fog.

We have seen a number of areas planted with trees in perfect, uniform lines and we wondered why. On the road today we passed a couple looking for mushrooms in such an area and wondered if this was the purpose - to promote the growth of fungi?

Arriving at Ceva was a bit of a letdown. The ¨variety store¨ market had come here today. It looked like all the stalls from Cuneo two days ago were now packed into the narrow streets of Ceva. Unfortunately, this made it hard to move through the narrow streets or see much of anything besides the big canopies that block the views. We had lunch on a bench near the church at the end of a street and then moved on and found something for some dinner at a nearby food market. As our BnB is in very remote location and not close to any restaurants we needed to prepare to 'dine in'. We bought a nice tomato, eggplant and roasted pepper dish, hoping for a microwave at our destination!

Mushrooms are a big thing in Ceva. In the last week of September, they also have a mushroom festival. This wheel barrel full was outside a specialty mushroom store.

The large outdoor food and vegetable market in Ceva

After a coffee on the edge of town we began the mostly uphill ride to our stay for the night. It was nice to complete part of this uphill today and save the second part of the 350m rise to the top of the ridge for tomorrow morning with our legs are fresh.

We have seen lots of these maps and signs for hiking and ebike trails. Wonder if there are charging stations along the routes??

Sale San Giovanni on a hill as we passed by. Looks like a interesting place but no rooms way up there either.

View looking down the road toward Ceva. It was still foggy as we finished our day of riding.

We arrived at our B&B for the night at 2pm, well within the check-in times. We spent the rest of the day resting, blogging and planning the next couple of days as we will now be leaving Italy`s Piemonte region and heading south to the coast.

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Today's ride: 43 km (27 miles)
Total: 859 km (533 miles)

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Jacquie GaudetI had a challenge finding accommodation in Ceva too. At one point, we were considering riding all the way through to Alba… But then I looked again much later and found something.
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