Holiday in Italy

If you're planning a holiday in Italy, Cascina Ponchietta, in Montà d'Alba, offers a pleasant stay on the Roero hills, in a completely renovated traditional farmhouse.

The structure is situated inside the farm of Cascina Ponchietta, which covers some 13 hectares in Roero. A big courtyard surrounds the farmhouse, which was renovated in 2000.

The ground floor has a large living room, the kitchen and two bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms (one for disabled guests). On the first floor are three bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms.

In summer, the exterior arcade allows you to take breakfast with a view over the land and Monviso Mountain. The courtyard, the cowshed and the vineyard evoke the typical atmosphere of a Roero farm.

A traditional breakfast, with cakes, biscuits, eggs, salami, cheese, jams and fruit, will give you the best start to the day. There are games for the children out in the grounds, cycling tours, tennis and horse riding 7km from the house, and the La Margherita golf club 15km away.

Guests have room service, there is ample parking and small pets are allowed. The house accepts credit cards and there are bicycles for your use.

Children up to 3 years stay free; children 4 to 10 years are charged €8 per guest per night; an extra bed is €13. Breakfast is included.

High season runs March 01 to June 30 and September 01 to November 30. A single room is EURO €48, double room €32.50 per person, a room with three beds €27 per person. Low season runs December 01 to February, and July 01 to August 31. A single room is €43.50, double room €27.50 per person, a room with three beds €24.50 per person.

Free entrance to public swimming pools is included in the price (15 and 30 km distant).

The bedrooms are named and have coloured frescoes referring to local rural traditions, adding something really special to your holiday in Italy. Il Falo on the first floor (single or double) has a bathroom. The wall painting deals with an ancient heathen rite well known in the culture and in the traditions of the rural people of all Europe: the Carnival which indicates the passage from the old to the new farming year.

This is the contrast between winter and spring, between Good and Evil. People discard the old year and build their hopes for the new. The biggest manifestation in Roero was the bonfire, which, in the night between Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, lit up the squares of all the villages. People thought that the numbers of the sparks foretold the luck of the new year, the prosperity of the harvest and the productivity of the silkworm. Round the bonfire people drank, sang and danced.