Alba

There was a month-long truffle festival in Alba during the time we visited this city. The shop windows in the old section of town were stuffed with displays of truffles, and we couldn't enter any food establishment -- not a restaurant, a cheese shop or a gourmet vendor -- that didn't reek of this amazingly pungent fungus.

Banners were strung across the streets displaying photo images of past truffle festivals. One showed Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe back in '54 sampling some of Alba's famous white truffles. Others showed motor cycle races conducted in honor of this delicacy (though I had a hard time sorting out the connection between motorcycle racing and truffles).

This banner, a blow-up of a 1932 photo, shows a grinning old man holding up a white truffle about the size of a gnarled head of cabbage. Since most of the truffles I saw were about the size of walnuts, I assume it's the truffle depicted that's the king, not the grinning old man.

A classic street scene in the old section of Alba.

Cynthia, ambling along in her purple pants.

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