Turin!

This past weekend Renee and I decided to venture out past the Alps – to Turin! I got to meet up with Maggie (my roommate from Virginia Tech) and hang out with her for the weekend, which was really nice. We got to catch up all while seeing some beautiful Italian sites!
After meeting up at the train station, we headed to a nearby café for a little espresso and planning. After picking out some sites that we wanted to see, the three of us headed towards the downtown area of the city. We didn’t know exactly what we would hit first, but we just followed the streets towards the river. We passed a few small markets on the way, though we never found the “biggest market in Europe” that is supposedly there on Saturdays.

I really enjoyed meandering through the streets and seeing (and hearing) all the Italians out and about doing their Saturday shopping. After stopping for a little sandwich we decided to go to this gelataria that we passed. The place had a bunch of different flavors of chocolate, including Aztec super dark chocolate!! Of course that was the flavor that I got – amazing. I’m not sure that I will have chocolate gelato again that will top that!

Soon enough we stumbled upon a big open square and very beautiful building – the Royal Palace of Turin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Torino_palazzo_reale_(v2).jpg ). The Palazzo Reale was the palace of the House of Savoy, originally built for the Madama Reale Christine Marie of France in the 1600s. Turin was the capital of the House of Savoy from the 12th-19th centuries. It was cool to see the Italian side of all the things Savoisien that we have been learning and hearing about. The building was incredible – it was so elaborately and richly decorated that is pretty much impossible to believe that people actually lived there. It doesn’t seem practical because it is so beautiful! Renee thought that it was prettier, in some senses, than Versailles, because there were more colors (rich blues and reds, for example) in all the different rooms. We only got to see a few rooms, though it took a good hour to work through just those. It was so beautiful!! We weren’t allowed to take pictures, but if I can find some I will surely post them. The one picture that I got though – so pretty! http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=42797806&l=108aa66505&id=6234577 .

Somehow after we exited the Palace we ended up in front of a church, St. John’s cathedral (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Duomo_Torino.jpg ). The chapel was built in the west wing of the Palace to house the very famous Shroud of Turin, an item that belonged to the family from 1453 until 1946. So cool! The history of the Turin shroud is very interesting...I read a lot about it there and when I got back. Very mysterious! The shroud is still there, but it is in a special container so you can’t actually see it in person, though they have replicates of it hanging up in another part of the church. The interior of the cathedral was really pretty. (http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=42797809&l=a1ee02d20a&id=6234577 )

After a little looking around and shopping downtown at some of the expensive Italian designers (Gucci, Dolce & Gabanna...etc) and more affordable places, we finally found the river front. Seeing the Po River was so cool! It was very pretty and we saw great views of both sides of the river from a big bridge connecting them.

After so much walking we were getting hungry so we started heading in the direction of our hotel. It was a really long walk, but we saw lots of pretty buildings and parks on the way there. By the time we got to the hotel we were all exhausted, hot and hungry! After a nice shower we all got dressed and headed to a restaurant nearby to our hotel that our receptionist had recommended to us. We got there at about 9:30 (pm) and the place was packed! One of the waiters acknowledged our presence so we thought we would be seated soon....this wasn’t really the case! After an hour of waiting (and watching Italians linger over their delicious looking meals) we finally got to sit down. Our waiter was an older Italian man who spoke a little bit of German and French. He was so funny and nice! Maggie served as our main interpreter and we got our meal started with an appetizer – a caprese salad. Yum! After that we ordered our primo piatto and our secundo piatto. The primo piatto is a pasta or rice dish and the secundo is a meat dish. I had no idea what I was ordering when I did, but it was fun to pick something random on the menu! It turned out that I got a really lovely pasta dish with porcini mushrooms and later a flat piece of meat, kind of in the form of chicken parmesan but without the sauce. Everything was so good!! It seemed like a lot of food (and it was) but everything was so spaced out because we had a good amount of time between each dish. Finally, when it came time for dessert our waiter urged us to come inside the restaurant and look at all the desserts that they were offering that night. He enthusiastically showed us which was our favorite, but when the chef came out jokingly insisted that they were all excellent. It was really funny and fun to see all their interactions and hear them talk (and talk to us!) – so lively and very much Italian! We ended up ordering what appeared to be a tiramisu cake and a pastry with vanilla pudding in the middle...so yummy! Both were very delicious and we really enjoyed them. After dessert we were brought some complementary “after dinner drinks” – a small amount of a local liquor. It was really strong and sweet but had a good flavor. I couldn’t finish it all but it was nice to try it. All in all the dinner was a great way to end the night – very Italian and so much fun! The meal lasted until 1:15am, at which point the restaurant was still very much open. We walked back to the hotel, called it a night and got ready for Sunday!

Most of Sunday we wandered around and explored the downtown area again, though we made a point to stop at the Museo Egitzio (Egyptian Museum) – the third most important Egyptian museum in the world! It was pretty big and had a lot of really fantastic things, including the papyrus rolls from the Book of the Dead, lots of statues, mummies (over 4000-6000 years old and some still had hair!!), trinkets, and all the cool things from the tombs of kings and queens. I wouldn’t have thought at first to have gone to this museum but I really enjoyed it!
Our ride back, which left Turin at 7:00pm and arrived back in Chambery at 10:00pm was simply fantastic. Not only did we get a beautiful view of the Alps the whole way home, but we hit it at sunset! Left and right we just kept seeing the most beautiful sites. It was very clear out so we could even see little waterfalls and streams in some distant mountains. Everything was so breathtaking – it really made the trip!