Europe 2009 Part 3: Turin

24-26 September

The train station in Turin was full of graffiti. We hauled our bags up and down stairs before we finally found a way out that got us to the other side of the tracks. By the time we checked into our room it was nearly two o'clock.

This wouldn't have mattered in London or Paris but it mattered here. Most shops and restaurants close around 1 or 2 p.m. and don't re-open for a few hours. The clerk at the hotel desk, who spoke as much English as Jack speaks Italian (i.e. not a whole lot but he can fake it) told us, in Italinglish, where to find an open cafe nearby.

So we walked around the corner and found one. The menu was on a chalk board out on the sidewalk. It was confusing because it was one of those choose-one-from-each-section menus, but we didn't understand that part. It took two waitresses, in tag-team fashion, to help us through it, Jack speaking what little Italian he knew while I just sort of smiled a lot.

Along with some pasta I'd ordered a plate of spinach. Before cooking it the waitress showed it to me. I thought she was just checking to see if that's what I wanted. What she was really saying was, "I'm going to cook this whole mountain of spinach so I hope you'll still have room to eat it." Which I didn't. Jack did his best to help so as not to make these overly pleasant staff unhappy.

The waitress and barista seemed enchanted with us. They didn't get too many travelers. Along with our food they gave us an Italian lesson. We asked them how to order tap water, and they told us.

I ordered espresso. Now, as you know, I like my coffee strong. The darker the roast, the better. However. "This tastes like the bottom of my French press," I told Jack. I mean, there comes a point where the strength overpowers the flavor, where anything interesting about the bean is shoved aside by the taste of burnt something. Now it makes sense why espresso is doled out by the drop. Anything more would be impossible.

I added half a pack of sugar, which would have been more than enough for an American sized cup. Here, in five or six milliliters of espresso, the sugar turned to syrup. I drank it anyway, vowing to try again some other time.

I took a picture of our lessons learned.


Aside from two workmen drinking espresso at the counter we were the only people in the place. We left them a thank-you note in the best Italian Jack could muster. It helps that he knows Latin. It doesn't help that I know French. I kept trying to Italicize French words. That didn't work very well because the words came out in Spanish, a language I thought I'd forgotten. Or maybe I was just speaking some sort of Latinate gibberish. Despite that I sometimes made myself understood, as long as Jack and I were trading off words.

We were in good company, though. The Torinese were fascinated by English, with some amusing results. First, this gambling shop across the street from the cafe:

Then this store closer to the center of town:

In the pedestrian shopping district I found this:

Original, preppy, undercover marines maybe? If so they're sure recruiting young these days.

The hotel rules posted on the door were another source of amusement.

"1. If a fire principle is characterized, set in action the alarm push button nearly
2. Maintain the calm;
3. To it marks them of the alarm, leave the place;"

and so on. They did get "Don't use elevators" right.

"10. If some person found itself with the dresses sets fire to you, and for no reason she never must run because the air would feed the fire. In these cases try to suffocate flames covering them with one covered or of the dressed:"

Sure. Whatever you say.

The next day we set out to explore. We went to the Palazzo Vecchio, about which I already blogged. I only have so much patience for Medieval and Renaissance art as it is, but by the time we finished with the palace I'd seen quite enough Madonnas, naked angels, and Jesus penises. And don't get me started on the number of dresses that just happen to fall off of one shoulder for some gratuitous boob.

I had as much trouble finding vegetarian food in Turin as I did in Paris; the cooking in Turin is very French-influenced. Jack scoped out some Piedmont wine.

Jack wanted a fancy dinner so we found a place, outdoors in a piazza. I don't even remember what I ate, but Jack had a fabulous time. There was cheese with honey and a risotto made with berries and champagne (yummy). The bread was good, too, which, we found out later, would be an exception until Venice. We watched the moon sink behind a church at the other end of the piazza and then went wandering in search of gelato.

On our second day we wandered into a street market that went on for blocks, turned right, and went on for an even longer stretch. When we saw a dried fruit stand I got greedy and wound up with a kilo of dried everything. Strawberries, cranberries, mango, kiwi, pineapple, peaches, pears, far more Euros than I'd intended to spend. The supply ended up lasting us about six days; we ate it for breakfast and whenever we got the munchies.

Since we were hauling a kilo of fruit around anyway, we decided to find some cheese and bread, and then find somewhere along the hillside to eat it all.

We found a German vendor selling pretzel bread, the real thing.

These pictures don't capture the size of the market.


We crossed the river Po. Hooray, another picture of a river by Perpetualheadwinds. At least it's not the Raritan this time.

Our plan was to climb the hill outside the city for a good view. First we found a bench near the bottom where we could eat lunch. I made a fair dent in the fruit kilo and snarfed down most of the pretzel. I said I wanted to go back and get another one on the way home. Jack figured the market would be closed by now.

Anyway, the view:




As best we could figure, we were looking at a small vineyard:

After we got back to the bottom I took a picture of where we'd been. The building was a museum that we decided wasn't worth going into. I did get to go in to use the bathroom. Looking around I determined we'd made the right choice.

Back on the city side of the Po we sat on the grass in a park and watched rowers go by.

Then we walked back home, through the street market again. Even though it was close to 6 p.m. much of it was still going. The pretzel lady was still there so I got another one. The fruit guy had re-stocked. Some vendors had set out generators to power lights over their stalls.

We dropped our stuff in the hotel and went out again in search of dinner. Passing the market again at nearly 8 p.m. we saw a dozen or so vendors still sticking it out.

Turin hosted the Olympics in 2006. Three years on it was obvious that the city was sliding back into what it had been before the big cleanup. There was graffiti everywhere, not much of it interesting. I like graffiti when it's colorful and creative. There's some really good work along the Northeast Corridor train tracks just outside of North Philadelphia that I gawk at on the way into work. Nothing in Turin comes close to that.

We checked our email twice at internet cafes. It was a good thing we'd checked a second time: our hotel reservation in Florence had been canceled. Shortly after making our reservations a month ago our credit card number was stolen and the card frozen (to Bank of America's credit, they found the fraud before we did). We got new cards within days but the Florence hotel tried to run our old number. Jack spent a dramatic half hour on the phone. The hotel had already given away our room but were kind enough to find us a spot in a hotel around the corner, run by a woman who spoke no English.

We had gelato again after dinner.

The next morning I stuffed the dried fruit into my backpack and boarded the train for Florence. The scenery wasn't as good.