Turin Saturday

This morning was uneventful. Pack up, duck down to local bar for cappuccino and collect some morning tea to eat at Bologna railway station , get lift from owner to station, train to Bologna, wait around, train to Turin ( 2 hours on a Eurostar cost E57 – fair bit and more than I remember from previous trips) . The man next to me slept and the lady across the table from me read, so I went through my stuff on Turin. I found my way very easily ( via a convenient exit from the station which I stumbled upon) to the apartment. It is a little closer to the station than I would have liked. There are a mix of downmarket shops and 4 star hotels so, I will see. Cristina met me here as arranged. I have 4 keys – 1 to get in through the huge door on the street, the second to get into 1 of the 2 stairwells going off the large entrance , the 3rd to get into the apartment and the 4th to get out to the little balcony that is shared with 3 other apartments looking over a central courtyard. There is another door onto a little balcony overlooking the street but that doesnot have a key. It is light and bright, very modern inside, greys and bright orange. Cristina said the door to the street was double glazed. I suppose because it need to be to keep out noise. ONce again, I will see.

After she had given me advice on where to eat gelatos, what the best flavour was, where to drink a bicerin ( typical Turinese drink of coffee, chocolate and cream) , where aperatives were too expensive etc etc ( all the important things) I realised it was 2.20 and I was hungry. I set off towards the markets , passed several places that were all too noisy or too full or not Italian and came to a nice looking half full place. I had a delicious meal and will certainly go back there if I am not somewhere else. In my haste to sit down I did not read the menu properly and so struggled a bit when she rattled off the options. But I was happy with my choice. I had risotto Piedmontese . It tasted as if it had been cooked in white wine and cream . The grains of rice were very large and sort of chewy but still soft. Then I had 2 halves of a large tomato that had been stuffed with breadcrumbs and somehitng else tasty and then covered in a white sauce. They use a lot of cream in their dishes here which I am a bit worried about – see separate problem below. The house red was better than I have had but I did not ask what it was. I had a panna cotta – apparently another speciality of this area ( probably many areas say that) and a coffee. I talked to the single lady sitting next to me for a while – they threw us out at 4.30. Then supermarket and fruit market for a few staples on way back to apartment. I bought some more of the little tomatoes that I had in Edinburgh and Ferrara. They seem less acidic than the ones I remember in Australia. I bought some peaches and did not make the same linguistic mistake as in Ferrara and asked if I could eat them today or tomorrow ( it is bad form to touch fruit at markets in Italy)

After sorting myself out, I went for a walk into the main square along one of the main roads. There are 18km of arcades – wide covered pavements in Turin. I left here about6.30 and the streets were packed with people of all ages out for a stroll. Many of the cafes had tables in part of the pavements so you had to dodge round them. The noise would have been OK except in the middle of several of the piazzas they had noisy things on. I went to the tourist bureau and got a transport map and info on boat trips along the PO. I got back here about 7.30 just as it was getting dark and do not think I would like to be much later.

I have just spent a while compiling a must do / like to do list of places and food and drink. I realised that in 1 whole week in Ferrara I only had 2 gelatos, never desert after a meal, 4 times a little cake or croissant or Danish with my morning coffee, wine or alcoholic drink once a day. Not really a very good effort at all. I had been half thinking of the dress that I wore to the wedding that I intend to wear to my sister-in-law’s special birthday party in early October. As I have told some of you, it was snugger than when I bought it and than I would like it to be. I have decided I am being silly and I should eat and drink what I feel like and worry about what to wear later. Part of being in Turin is experiencing the life and the ‘ café culture is one of the city’s distinctive characteristics’ – a quote from 1 of my books. Trouble is, if I have a main lunch with creamy sauce, I won’t feel like much else that day So I have to be very organised for several days to make sure I try the things I want to once, then I will have a few more days to be quite haphazard. What a paragraph of twaddle.