Villa Tre Angeli

The first tour for this group was to really get the feel of the Italian, mountain life. We had a ball with our September guests.

The Hills are Alive - Appennine Views

Gian Carlo and I took them to the top of the mountain to see the spectacular view of our Appenine Mountain Valleys.  Our local ranges are always a great place for hiking or mountain biking, for those of you that like the exercise.

We had a fantastic lunch with local porcini mushrooms (that grow this time of year in our woods), wild boar and polenta.

Porcini, Polenta and Wild Boar Lunch

Topped off  with live music and dancing Italian style. The guys played bocce, mingled with the locals and actually got up to dance with their wives. Not always an easy feat to dance the polka, waltz and tango…but they gave it a try and it was a job well done. That fresh mountain air, the jolly conversation and the movement exhausted us in a good way. There was no problem sleeping that night!

Dancing Italian Style

Delicious Porcini mushrooms about in Bedonia in Autumn

Bedonia, Italy  is enjoying the mushroom season this autumn.  With perfect porcini making weather this year–a lot of rain and great days of sunshine–the porcinis abound. People come from all over to hike through the woods to collect these precious and delicious mushrooms. In fact, our bed and breakfast has been hopping this month, with tourists from all over Europe and the United States.

By staying with us, our guests are able to obtain a free pass to gather the porcino mushroom–which is quite difficult to obtain.  The Porcini gathering forests are very protected and only allowed to be collected on certain days, in certain areas and only with the pass.

After you have gathered as much as you can carry,  just down the road from the B&B  you can attend the week long festival.  You will discover delightful dishes dressed with local porcini mushrooms.  There is a live band so you can dance the calories away after filling yourself with such mouthwatering dishes. You will also find dozens of stands that sell many things, not to mention the porcino mushroom itself.

Villa Tre Angeli is always happy to help you celebrate a lovely Italian festival as the Italians do it. There is nothing more fun and free spirited than an Italian at a good festival.

Villa Tre Angeli is happy to say that the winter has finally left us with a beautiful spring.

We have trails to hike that lead to an amazing view of the Ligurian Sea. On a clear day you can see as far as Corsica. The hiking is mild to moderate and the surroundings make for a picture perfect picnic. We are available to accompany you or you can go it on your own. It makes for a vigorous, yet relaxing day.

Once down the mountain, there are many Trattoria’s to choose from to enjoy a traditional Italian dinner over an excellent bottle of wine. Then you can hang your weary head at our B&B and wake to a great breakfast to energize you for your next Italian adventure.

We like to immerse you into the Italian experience. We have had some of our customers go on tours that do just that. Students and interested parties have come to learn the Italian language and live the life of an Italian. Their schedules were a 3 hour Italian lesson in the morning, a conversation class in the early evening (5 days a week) and tours of the area, making for an amazing learning experience. They also had the chance to go out and explore the area, applying what they learned. They went to the local shops, buying ingredients that they needed to make a lovely Italian meal or sitting in a cafe and chatting with the locals. Upon their return home they had a better grasp of the Italian language, making it easier to continue their studies or travel the country on their own. It’s all here, just a stones throw away!

Veronique, our 15 year old daughter, isattending a professional cooking high school. Her goal is to become a chef and open up her own restaurant one day. One week, she prepared our entire family, including her grandmother and uncle, a full course meal. She dressed in her little chefs uniform and got cracking in my kitchen. I did not help at all, so I was amazed when I walked in and found the kitchen still intact! She was at the stove, frying pan in hand, using a twist of her wrist to perfect her form. She made beautiful crepes, stuffed with besciamella and mushrooms, sauteed pork loin steaks with prosciutto and sage, and served a cheesecake for dessert. Everyone was quite impressed, even her Italian grandmother, who has been cooking for years! We are all very proud of her.

Here are some of our favorite sites:

Simple Italy

Valtaro Tourism (in Italitan)

Parma Tourism Board

Castelli Del Ducato

Tisza Lodge

The Wine Hub

California Overland

Theresa Raffetto Photography

Marte Gras in Bedonia, Italy

Bedonia had the “red light” night full of partying where men dressed up as women and women dressed up as men.

They spent the evening outside warming their buns by the fire in a barrel, strutting their stuff and pretending to sell ‘the goods’. Fun was had by all as the uninhibited dressed to the nine for the evening and the timid went out to witness the event.

Of course, my hubby was dressed as one of the lovely damsels for sale even though he did not end up bringing home some bacon. My dad claims it’s because he’s just too ugly as a woman… so I sent him back to work as a man!

Villa Tre Angeli is proud to be “Bedoniese”. Bedonia offers an outdoor Trout fest that has been going on for the past 53 years. The whole town comes to life when all the habitants lend a hand to prepare for the big event. Preparing the plaza with table and chairs, a dance floor, a stage and a cooking area makes for plenty of work for everyone. They have huge, round friers for deep frying the trout, a recipe that has been perfected over the years. Gigantic copper pots placed over an open fire, slowly cook the polenta which is tended to for hours, mixed almost constantly with big wooden sticks. At lunch time many come out to eat together, enjoying the weather and the food.

Labels: Bedoniese, Trout Fest

posted by Pixel Juice Productions at 2:04 PM

We, here at Villa Tre Angeli, enjoyed a lovely tour on Lake Maggiore. It is a lake formed by glaciers. The water is deep (1227feet), clean and very cold. The weather is never freezing due to the mountains surrounding it and never really very hot due to the breeze that comes off the water. It is ideal for any vacationer. It is one of the biggest lakes here in Italy. There is a ferry that takes you from town to town to explore the area to the fullest or you could just take a relaxing stroll along the promenade to take in your surroundings. The view is spectacular!

Villa Tre Angeli, in Bedonia, Parma, Italy has just finished up a tour with a couple of guests from Pennsylvania. They were especially excited about the tour we did for them at the prosciutto factory in Langhirano, which is the Emilia Romagna region. We wandered around the warehouse refrigerators and saw rows and rows of aged Parma hams hanging from the rafters. We are all pretty amazed at the fact that they are so particular about the hind legs that they will except as a Parma ham. The pigs must be fed certain foods, raised in a certain area with fresh mountain air, they must have indoor/outdoor range, they can’t be too young, too old, too heavy or too light weight. All the thighs must be treated within 120 hours of the butchering and there is absolutely no waste what so ever. The sea salt that is used to season the Parma prosciutto (not too salty, not too sweet,) is then given to the autostrada (local highways) for the snowy season. The fat that is cut away from the leg is then ground and used for salami or sausages.

Every one of these hams are stamped, tagged and branded from the very beginning of the pigs life all the way through the final stages of the aging process…which then makes it simple to retrace its tracks, making sure that everyone involved has done their share to create the perfect taste.

These Parma Prosciuttos are then aged and hung for no less than 12 months…some for as long as 32 months. When the inspector comes to check them, he is very scrupulous with his judgment. If he decides that the ham is not up to snuff with the Parma name, it is rejected as Parma Ham and sold at inferior prices without the Parma crown of recognition.

After seeing the whole process, we then sat on the terrace and had lunch based on the prosciutto made on the premises, the salami of the area, the local parmesan cheese (Parmagiano Regiano), bread and of course, good wine from the surrounding hills. We sat for hours enjoying the view, sipping the wine and taking in the relaxing Italian life.