Up in Italy’s highlands they still know how to make their own fun. Last night’s local sports bulletin featuring fiolet, rebatta and tzan hinted at a taste for the bizarre. Not for Valdostans a convenience–sport diet of Monday night football or cricket on the green.

But then the people of the Valle d’Aosta are a parochial bunch: these 120,000 mountain–dwellers secured an autonomy agreement and live under their own government. Stop in for a bite and you’ll clock some very un–Italian dishes on the menu—does your local trattoria serve Fontina cheese and cabbage soup?

Read the rest at Perceptive Travel.

The seasons switch rapidly in northern Italy. In spring, the dirty white of melting snow and parched brown of desiccated foliage turns to emerald green with staccato bursts of pink fruit blossom, yellow cowslips and violet alpine flowers. Over the summer, the greens will pale, before autumn’s mustards and russets erupt, a last riot before the long winter. It is a cycle played out in Italy’s hills from the Val di Susa to Udine, but nowhere is it more marked than in the Parco Nazionale del Gran Paradiso. [Read more →]

Whether you’re into German rieslings or Spanish bubbly, there are some great day-trips for wine lovers, writes Donald Strachan.

Alsace, France

The lowdown: The place names sound German, the wine bottles look German, the local dialect, Elsassisch, has a definite Germanic twang to it. But this is France, and the wines are distinctively French.

Highlights of this 200-kilometre route, tracking the Vosges mountains from Thann in the south to the border of the Palatinate in the north, are bunched up in the central stretch around Colmar and Selestat. The favourite tour bus stop is Riquewihr, which would normally be good reason in itself to avoid it, but this uniquely Alsatian walled village stays (just) the right side of kitsch. And, anyway, it’s home to Hugel and Dopff au Moulin, the best exponents of local white wines.

Alternatively, the co-operatives at Turckheim and Beblenheim make great stops to try gewurztraminer in its natural home. And while you’re at it, the region is one of Old Europe’s best for gastro-tourism – Michelin-starred restaurants are scattered like hundreds and thousands, and Alsace onion tart is unmatchable.

Base yourself in: Everyone else heads to Colmar for chocolate-box holiday snaps, but to avoid high-season crowds try Selestat. [Read more →]