Paesi e Sapori: A Trip to Ovada

Ovada is a city you arrive at. If you set off from Milan, crossing the Po Valley with a longing for the sea in your heart, you only have to come out of the first tunnel of the Trafori motorway to feel you have reached Liguria, even though you are still in the province of Alessandria. The landscape changes right here, and within a few kilometres the endless expanses of Piedmont give way to hills and the sight of blue mountains in the distance. The monotony is pleasantly broken by the sight of colourful houses, of castles that dominate the valleys, and of plenty of greenery. To reach the sea you would need another twenty minutes or so, but the fascinating motorway route, full of bends and tunnels, can be tackled later too: you feel like stopping right here, taking the Ovada exit and heading into this city that joins two regions.

That is what happened to us a year ago, in spring. Our idea of stopping here was immediately rewarded, so to speak, by a tasty surprise: we were catapulted into the festive atmosphere of Paesi e Sapori, one of the most important food-and-wine events of the Alto Monferrato. Tasting one after another the specialities offered by the stallholders — representatives of the Pro Loco of numerous villages in the nearby Ovada hills — we could understand how truly these lands are a bridge between Piedmont and Liguria, from the point of view of culinary traditions too.

To start with, one of the highlights of the day was farinata, a typical product of Ligurian peasant cooking, but we also tasted several more typically Piedmontese dishes, such as vegetables in bagna cauda, fresh mushroom salads and agnolotti, a first course of thin pasta with a meat filling, and borage, to be eaten with sauce or “white”, in a steaming cup of Dolcetto d’Ovada. We were told that Paesi e Sapori is in fact an event that anticipates the best food festivals to be held in the area throughout the season. Consequently the choice was really very wide; we even tasted the andarini, tiny flour gnocchi to be eaten in broth, typical of the Easter period.

We will be back again this year, on Saturday 15 and Sunday 16 May, but this time we will bring reinforcements: some Genoese friends who are motoring enthusiasts. We will set off together with them from the Superb City, for two reasons: our friends would not miss MotorinOvada for anything in the world, a side event taking place on Sunday which is a gathering of vintage mopeds — roller, single-speed, touring, scooter, sports and off-road — registered up to 1990. The other reason that makes us set off from Genoa, to be precise from Voltri, is that we want to retrace the extremely winding but breathtakingly beautiful Turchino road.

In fact, even starting from Genoa, Ovada is a point of arrival: the name of the city may make you think of grapes, but that is only an impression given by the sight of the endless vineyards that surround it; in reality the place name Ovada comes from Vadum, indicating the fact that already in Roman times the city was a place of transit and therefore also a hub of trade. But human activities always follow, to some extent, the dictates of nature: and it was nature itself that decided, thousands of years ago, to unite Genoa and Ovada, linking them with nothing less than two streams, the Stura and the Orba. The Stura rises near the Piani di Praglia, a plateau close to the Ligurian-Padan watershed in the province of Genoa, and flows into the Orba right at Ovada: the Orba stream also rises in Genoese territory, on the northern slope of Monte Reixa.

The Stura Valley, which between Voltri and Ovada also crosses the municipalities of Masone, Campo Ligure and Rossiglione, gives the traveller a breathtaking view: the winding road, wedged between the greenery of the Ligurian Apennines and the stream, more or less dry depending on the season, leads to Ovada through a landscape that is wild and gentle at the same time: a real emotion to experience.

Francesca Bertha