We are doing the Dolomites (again) his fall, and finishing with a few days in this region in late September. It is new to us. One of the inns we are staying at offers a truffle excursion with a local forager and dog. We are intrigued. Anybody tried this?

We went on a truffle hunt outside of Alba with a local and his dog. It was a great way to spend a Sunday morning. My only regret is that we didn't take the truffles the dog found when they were offered to us. Since we were staying in a hotel we didn't think we could use them. What we should have done is taken them to dinner with us and asked the restaurant to shave them on the food. Go for it!

Check with the Alba tourist office for truffle hunting excursions.

The Alba tourist office had "simulated" truffle hunts. The dog looks for a deliberately hidden truffle while tourists watch. We passed on that. Instead, we headed out with a relative of one of the truffle shops and his mighty dog. We spent a couple of hours in the woods following the dog. The cost was 25€ per person for a private expedition for the two of us.

Yes, Marija, I believe what our inn is proposing is more like your experience than the tourist office. We make our arrangements directly with "Beppi" and spend a couple of hours trooping through the woods. I think it would be worth it just for that. If truffles are found and offered, I will keep your advice in mind.

Our planned excursion got rained out, very disappointing. We were game, but dog can't smell in the rain, and footing is slippery. But we really enjoyed this, our first visit to Piedmont, so maybe we will be luckier another time.

Below is an excerpt from my TR of our 2012 truffle hunting experience at a place between Asti and Alba. It was a nice walk in the woods and we had a lot of fun with Natale and Giorgio - plus we found truffles. I've also included a link to some pics we took and a couple of links to videos about our truffle hunters.


>>>>Piedmont Wine Country Day 3: After breakfast, we programmed the address of the place for our truffle hunt in to our GPS and headed out in to the rural Piedmont area looking for adventure. We easily arrived at the address (the view of the countryside from the place was great) and we were met by Natale and Giorgio who run this family business. After a short discussion where we learned a lot about truffle hunting traditions and hearing a few interesting personal stories from Natale, we then met Bella and Brio – the two dogs who were to go with us. They said a truffle hunting dog can cost anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000 depending on how good they are. We headed in to the woods and after a short walk, the dogs were released and began to hunt. It was very similar to pheasant hunting in Iowa – except it was much more scenic than an Iowa cornfield and no guns were involved. LOL!!

It was a fun time watching the dogs sniff around and when they did find a truffle, it was like a cartoon watching the dirt fly as they dug it out (you definitely did not want to be behind them when they were in a digging frenzy). We found three good-sized black truffles (not the season for white truffles) and went back to the man-cave in one of the outbuildings to enjoy some wine, salami, and one of our truffles shaved on to a delicious cheese made from a blend of goat, cow and sheep milk that was drizzled with some truffle-flavored olive oil. We all sat around eating and drinking and chatting and had a really good time. All in all it was a very enjoyable experience.<<<<

https://john183italy2012.shutterfly.com/pictures/1042

https://dreamofitaly.com/tv-show/piedmontlake-iseo/

http://www.traipler.com/traiplers/vi...o-in-piemonte/