Truffle Hunting, Vergelle.

On our third day, Peter & I were very privileged to go hunting for truffles with a professional hunter, Helen. Her family own several large areas of land and so hunting is not allowed for anyone other than the family. Helen's father and brother also hunt there for truffles. She took two of her four specially trained dogs, a breed from Emilia Romagna, around Bologna. The white one is called Cisco & the black one Gretta.

A very interesting morning spent in beautiful, autumnal, Tuscany countryside.

The first find of the morning and it only took about 10 minutes to find. Then Cisco sniffs them out and starts to dig for them, Helen has to be very quick to stop her and look in the hole  and dig by hand to see if there is a truffle, and exactly where it is. If you sniff a handful of soil, you can smell the truffle quite strongly.

The first one is found. You would never find one without the dogs - they are constantly sniffing the ground as you walk along and cover a very wide area quite quickly.

With the first one in the little sack, the dogs get a reward of a biscuit.

And another!

These signs are all around their land, this one had fallen down, but the message is clear in any language!

Another, good sized, truffle.

The simple tool is used a lot. the truffles are frequently growing amongst root systems and can be hard to retrieve. The tool will cut through roots etc., and make it easier to find and to take out of the soil

Truffles are found anywhere from just under the surface to 30cm deep - Cisco makes very light work of digging deeper.

Some of Helen's truffles with a cigarette packet for size comparison. It is a valuable day's work as they fetch up to €2,400 per kilo.

In the afternoon, we went to San Quirico and passed there trees - an iconic Tuscan landmark, with the sun moments from setting leaving long shadows and a warm light.

Locals waiting for the evening passeggiata to begin.