Our penultimate spot on this Italian adventure is Turin, or Torino, which is less than fifty miles from the French border. The cuisine is, therefore, more French and the croissants are better than anywhere else so far. The language also differs from the Italian we heard elsewhere, sort of a mix of French and Italian. The architecture, too, is much more French than any of the other places we visited with grand, wide plazas surrounded by Baroque era buildings.
Gates in the Piazza Castello.
Porticos remind us of Bologna on Via Roma, the center city’s main high-end shopping street.
Palace Carignano, now a museum.
Th Mole Antonelliana was intended to be a synagogue, but it was never completed as such. It is now home to Italy’s national cinema museum.
Beautiful galleries for shopping and eating.
19th century pharmacies still serve customers in style.
Caffe Mulassano has been serving tea and petite sandwiches since 1879.
Turin has dozens of sweets options, gelato, pastries, bicerin and chocolates, and is the origin of Nutella (also Lavazza, Fiat, Lancia, Olivetti and Cinzano.) Turin also is known for its truffles. Although I didn’t get pics, we had a delicious truffle-forward lunch today at Tabui, with tagliatelle with black truffles, bacon, parm and egg, angelotti with traditional butter and sage, and ratatouille, washed down by glasses of Nebbiolo and Barolo.
This is Po. He climbed out of the Po River here to welcome me.
As if all of this weren’t enough, we also had a great visit to the Museo Egizio, the largest collection of Egyptianalia outside of Egypt. The pics don’t do it justice, but here are a few highlights of
hieroglyphics, sarcophagi and other fascinating 5,000 year old relics of an ancient civilization.
Yet more reminders of our mortality and our desire to leave behind a legacy that has meaning to future generations.
