Practical information for visiting Alba

Italy's four national operators — TIM, Vodafone, WindTre and Iliad — cover Alba and the main valley well. Visitors from elsewhere in the EU can use their home data allowance under EU roaming rules; visitors from outside the EU usually find a local prepaid SIM cheaper than roaming.

The thing to plan for here is not the town but the hills.

• Coverage drops in the folds between the ridges. The Langhe are a corrugated landscape, and the roads run along the tops with the valleys cut deep between them. Reception is generally fine on a ridge and can disappear in the dip, which matters because that is exactly where a cellar you are navigating to tends to be.
• Download your maps and your addresses before you drive out. Estate addresses in these hills are frazioni and farm names rather than street numbers, satellite navigation gets them wrong, and the moment you need to re-check is the moment you are in a valley with no signal. Screenshot the directions the winery sent you.
• The underground archaeology has no signal, which is only relevant because the Roman and medieval remains beneath the centre are visited on guided tours and your booking may be on your phone.

Public wi-fi is available in parts of the centre, and cafés and hotels generally provide their own. During the truffle fair the centre carries far more people than usual and data can slow accordingly.

Alba is a safe market town of 31,215 people. The genuine risks are driving, drinking and autumn fog, in that order, and almost none of them are inside the town.

• Do not drink and drive. This is the real hazard in the Langhe, and it needs saying in a region whose entire purpose is wine. The ridge roads are narrow, winding, unlit and bounded by steep vineyard slopes, and a cellar visit means several tastings. Hire a driver, nominate someone who is not drinking, or stay within walking distance of the estate. Italian drink-drive limits are enforced.
• The ridge roads demand attention even sober. Expect blind bends, no barrier in places, farm machinery pulling out of field entrances, and cyclists descending fast. Keep to 30-40 km/h on the vineyard roads between Barolo and La Morra, and use the horn before a blind bend the way local drivers do.
• Autumn fog is a driving hazard and a walking one. From October it can cut visibility to a few metres within a minute — the same nebbia that gives Nebbiolo its name. If it comes down while you are on a track between vineyards, the landscape loses every reference point: download offline maps before you set out, and walk up to the ridge road rather than down, because coverage and traffic are both on the tops.
• Watch your bag in the truffle-fair crowds. From 10 October to 6 December the centre and the market are far denser than usual, and that is the one time of year Alba has the pickpocketing of a busy tourist town. Front pockets, and agree a meeting point.
• Buy truffles inside the market. This is a fraud risk rather than a safety one, and it is a real one: white truffle is expensive and hard for a non-expert to judge. In the World Market the trade runs under a Quality Commission and judges from the National Truffle Study Centre are available before and after a purchase. Outside it, you are on your own.
• Stay out of the vineyard rows. They are private property and a working crop, there is machinery in them at harvest, and the slopes are steeper and looser underfoot than they look from the road.
• Wild boar are common in these hills at dusk. Give them distance, especially a sow with young, and do not get between them and cover.

For any emergency call 112. The municipal switchboard is 0173 292111.

Alba is the largest town in the Langhe and has the hospital that serves these hills, which makes it a better place to be unwell than any of the villages around it. Visitors from the EU carrying a valid EHIC or GHIC card can use public healthcare on the same terms as Italian residents; visitors from elsewhere should carry travel health insurance, because treatment is billed directly. Pharmacies in the centre post the duty rota for nights and holidays. For anything urgent, 112 reaches medical services.

Four points specific to Alba and the Langhe.

• Alba itself is the easiest walking in this rollout. It is a valley-floor town at 172 metres and genuinely flat, with the cathedral, the towers, the shopping street and the market all within ten level minutes. In a region of ridge-top villages this is worth saying plainly: if someone in your party cannot manage a climb, Alba works. The villages in the hills do not — they are on ridges, and La Morra in particular is at 513 metres with steep streets.
• Alcohol is the health consideration here, and not a trivial one. A cellar day in the Barolo zone can mean a dozen tastings of a wine that is 14% and more. Spit, eat properly, drink water between estates, and settle the driving before you start. The regional cooking is rich and the portions are generous, which helps more than it sounds.
• Autumn is damp and cold. The famous Langhe fog is a cold wet grey, and October and November here are not the mild Italian autumn people pack for. Bring a waterproof layer and shoes that cope with mud if you intend to walk the vineyard tracks.
• Summer offers no shade. The vineyard slopes are open, hot and waterless in July and August. If you are walking the tracks, go early, carry water, and do not rely on finding a bar in a village of two hundred people in the afternoon.

Emergency number: 112, free from any phone. It is Italy's single emergency number — medical emergencies, the Carabinieri and emergencies generally — and it routes the call to the right service.

Police: 113. Fire brigade: 115. Financial Guard (Guardia di Finanza): 117.

The municipality can be reached on 0173 292111, its single switchboard, for anything it administers.

Hospital: Alba has the hospital serving the Langhe, which is one of the practical arguments for basing yourself here rather than in a hill village. For anything urgent call 112 and let them dispatch.

If you break down or get lost in the hills — the Alba-specific emergency, and the likeliest one. Three things make it harder than it should be: mobile coverage drops in the valleys between the ridges, estate addresses are farm names rather than street numbers, and autumn fog removes every landmark. So before you drive out: download offline maps, screenshot the directions the winery sent you, and tell someone where you are going. If you do need help and have no signal, walk up to the ridge road rather than down into the valley — that is where both the reception and the traffic are.

The truffle fair is run by the Ente Fiera from Piazza Medford 3, on +39 0173 361051 or info@fieradeltartufo.org — the right number for anything about the market, the events or a ticket, rather than the municipality.

If you are separated from your party, Piazza Risorgimento, in front of the cathedral, is the rendezvous: it is the one square everyone can find, and the centre is small and flat enough that nobody is lost for long.