Torino - Italy's first capital city

In early March, Melanie and I visited Torino for 3 days.  From Florence, we zoomed up there on the fast train, hitting a top speed of 300kph, and arrived less than 3 hours later in this northwestern Piedmontese city.

We'd booked a Bed and Breakfast, which it was, with a bonus being that we had a whole 1 bedroom apartment to ourselves, featuring a large bedroom with two balconies - a great find!

Our host Alessandra was lovely and friendly. She prepared an excellent breakfast of fresh fruit, juice, toast and home made jams etc we were very happy. On the last day, she rushed off to Padua to play in a bridge tournament!

A colonnaded walkway - check out the beautiful ceiling!

 
 Unfortunately, it rained each day, as all of Italy is currently in the midst of a fortnight of rain - perhaps counteracting the fortnight of intense heat in Melbourne? Luckily for us Torino is full of beautiful colannaded walkways which alowed us to get around without getting wet.

Palazzo Carignano

When Italy became a nation in 1861, most of the main political players and political action was  in Torino, which led to it becoming the nation's first capital city.  Unfortunately, the capital was changed to Florence just 2 years later, later moving again to Rome, but the Torinese are justifiably proud of their key role during the Risorgimento, as the uniting of Italy is called.  We learned this, and more from the excellent Italian Unification museum, which as an added plus, is located in the beautiful Palazzo Carignano.










  

The Juventus shop - me in the rain.....

Torino is also the birthplace of Lavazza coffee, the original cafe is still there although has been modernised to look like, well, a cafe.

It's also the home of Italy's most successful and famous soccer team, Juventus, who were playing a home match while we were there against Celtic.  As it bucketed down rain the day of the match, we didn't even consider attending, and I watched the match on TV - predictably, Celtic lost (2 nil).

A 1600s copy of the Turin shroud

We visited a small, well presented museum staffed by passionate elderly italians, who were more than happy to chat with us and lead us around Museo Sindone (Turin Shroud Museum).  The museum is described as the science and history of the shroud, as whether the shroud is real or a fake is hotly contested, and the museum presents only the history and science that assumes the shroud is real. The DNA testing that showed the shroud to be a fake is simply not mentioned.  Funnily, I sort of enjoyed this parochial, oh-so-italian way of doing things.  And the religious fervour and enthusiasm of the volunteers was delightful, (and a stark contrast from the bored government staff at a couple of other Torino musuems).






 
The shroud itself is kept locked away in a chapel located in the Torino Duomo, and is brought out once every 25 years for public viewing.  We'll have to plan our next visit to Torino for 2025.......

Personally, I think the Shroud is a fake, although as this would make it a fake from the 1200s, it's a significant item in its own right.

We later visited the Duomo, whose interior was quite drab, due to a massive fire in 1997 which caused plenty of damage.  However, the small chapels to the side of the nave were untouched, and these are very ornate, with plenty of gold, almost over the top in style.  See what you think.

The exterior of Palazzo Madama, in the rain of course

Torino is a beautiful city with an abundance of 19th century palaces, and it reminded us both of Trieste with its Hapsburg feel.

One of the best is Palazzo Madama, which cleverly houses a museum of antique arts, which means we got to enjoy both the sumptuously decorated rooms of the palace, along with antique ceramics (which we particularly enjoyed) and other objects.  The grand ballroom with its 20 metre ceilings was a sight!









Torino is a chocolate town, my favourite choclate the gianduiotto was created here, and everywhere we turned chocolaterie windows were tantalisingly full of Easter delights.

And the Italians just love giftwrapping their Easter eggs!





Notwithstanding the rain, we very much enjoyed Torino in our 3 days, and it must be even more beautiful when not raining.

Wine in Italy – 252 bottles and counting

An occasional post for wine enthusiasts...

The ONAV course #2

Well, I’ve finished my winetasting course, and have learned heaps about all things wine  - making it, chemical composition, and most importantly, tasting plenty of different wines!  Who would have thought tannins can be found in the skin of a grape (good tannins), the inside of grape pips (bad tannins), the rasp of a grape bunch (bad) as well as oak barrel tannins (good)?

And importantly, I’ve made some new friends, enjoying wine dinners and winery visits with them, and seem to keep bumping into them at the occasional winetasting event – funny about that.

As for the final exam, well, it was postponed on account of traffic nightmares caused by snow. Only problem is, Melanie and I had months ago booked our flight to Morocco specifically for the day after the scheduled exam.  So I’ve missed it, and will have to sit the exam with another class sometime in April….

Winetasting Event - Terre di Toscana (Tuscan Lands)

The first weekend of March is the famous Carnevale of Viareggio.  Instead, I'm at the next-door town of Lido di Camaiore, at Tuscany's pre-eminent annual winetasting event, with 130 wineries in attendance.  Having lived here for almost a year, I've prepared a shortlist of what I want to taste, but am shocked to see it runs to almost 40 wineries!

The tasting is held in a 5 star hotel, and is packed - I learn later that well over 3,000 people attended over the two days.  Winetasting events here are much like those in Australia, except there are less men-with-beards, more women, and everyone is impeccably dressed, apart from me, that is.

The wines:  I taste the SuperTuscan Sassicaia, predictably the table is 4 deep with people doing the same thing, it's wonderful with a super-long finish, but well out of my price range of $150.  Highlights? I taste, enjoy, and intend taking a bottle home somehow, of:

• Isole e Olena's Cepparello - silky smooth tannins masking a core of pure ripe fruit
• Felsina's 2 big guns - Riserva Rancia and Fontalloro, both are fruit forward with restrained tannins
• the organic winery from near Lucca, Tenuta di Valgiano's flagship sangiovese/syrah/merlot blend
• Grattamacco's flagship Cab Sav, which is young and brooding, and a bottle already awaits me in Australia (thanks Mandy)
• Tiezzi's Brunello di Montalcino - the standard bottle, not the reserve, is a good compromise between traditional and modern - and more importantly, delicious drinking.

Vino di casa - What we're drinking at home.... 
Winter has been cold, at times rainy or even snowy - perfect red wine drinking weather – I’ll raise a toast to that!  And so we’ve been raiding the mysteriously growing cellar in our living room.  We’ve enjoyed:

• plenty of Chianti Classicos, including our favourite Castellare, as well as the occasional,
• Cab Sav, which never fails to remind me of Australia,
• Rosso di Montalcino, always good drinking
• Brunello di Montalcino, usually to accompany a special meaone of Melanie’s special slowcooked meals
• quality sangiovese/cabernet blend, sometimes called SuperTuscans, when done well is a great marriage between old world and new world.

Castellare di Castellina
Chianti Classico 2010  13.5%
10 euros per bottle

80% sangiovese grapes, remainder canaiolo and colorino, grown in the classic region of Chianti..  In the glass, it's a ruby red and quite transparent.  On the nose is cherry, violet and maybe cinnamon. The palate is savoury, with red fruits hiding undr the surface, and well dosed with acid - this will improve with a couple more years.  It's a tad austere without food, but delivers handsomely with a bowl of pasta.

 

 .....and Something Better

Tassi 2007 Brunello di Montalcino

19 euros (on sale at local supermarket)

15%

Friends are over for dinner, Paolo is from Lucca, Stella is Taiwanese and Melanie has made her already legendary rabbit cacciatore, slowcooked for 4 hours.  Tonight, to reflect the international nature of our dinner, we’re serving it with my trademark mashed potatoes.  Which means it’s time for the big guns – Brunello.

In the glass, it's ruby red but more opaque than other Brunellos, hinting at a more modern, fuller bodied style. The nose shows some ripe black fruit, floral tones, vanilla and some spice, cloves perhaps. Tasting is all about structure - the tannins are there, but fine and elegant, as are the red fruits for balance, there is a touch of sweetness there, rounding out the acid.  Overall it's silky, elegant and easy to drink, with a long finish. Bingo!

* 252 bottles and counting.... is the number we've consumed at home (excluding restaurants) since arriving on 12 April 2012

Shopping in Morocco

Marino puts his foot down!

All Moroccan villages are full of tiny little shops; from shoes to scarves, spices to silver and not forgetting the rugs! After making a few inquiries as to where to buy the best rugs we made a purchase – 3 in total! Fingers crossed they arrive home in Australia!! I think the rug shops are my favourite, I could have purchased many more, but someone wouldn't let me!

Plenty more to buy here!!

Wouldn’t fit in my luggage

Marino is always game to try anything local and headed to the barber for a haircut. Given all the instructions were in sign language I am pleased to say he still looks handsome and all for (DH30 + Dh20 tip) $6AUD! He enjoyed the experience so much he went back every few days for a shave!

 After 2 days of walking, sightseeing, shopping and eating we’d decided we needed a treat and headed to a hammam. These local bath houses are where Moroccans head for a steam and scrub with a local black soap, made from a byproduct of the locally grown argan industry, which looks just like a tub of black grease (thankfully it doesn’t smell that bad)! We opted for a tourist hammam as the local ones are segregated  - men and women at different times - neither of us being brave enough to go alone! 

Our English and Italian were quite useless to us as the predominant languages spoken in Morocco are French, Arabic and Berber, so communication in the hammam was difficult and we were not quite sure what to do.

We entered a small room tiled floor to ceiling in blue and white mosaics (I’m immediately happy) with a small bath in the corner being filled with hot water. The lady giving the bath/scrub indicates for us to tip the water over ourselves, and promptly leaves the room. Ok, the room is warm as the heat is coming up through the floor, so we tip water over ourselves – then each other for what seems like 30 mins. This is a long time to sit and tip water over you!! Finally our lady re-enters the room, she’s now dressed in her bathers and a sarong? So I think …….. is she going to join us? We are then smothered in the black soap which actually has a very pleasant eucalyptus scent and is very cooling. She then precedes to scrub us down, one at a time, with a loofah mitt – really hard!!! It felt like she was removing a layer of skin! When finished I was shown the mitt (the faint hearted should not read on) it looked like a kitchen scourer having scrubbed a pan covered in melted cheese! Oooooooh ….. yuk!

Still we both felt really clean. In fact we liked it so much we returned a few days later.

 

After our tour through the medina in Marrakech our guide asked if we’d like to see a spice market. Yes we all say, with great enthusiasm. Little did we know it was a tourist trap!, involving sitting through a 20 minute performance and spiel of every product in the store and what it could do and how it would save our lives ………..

We were then instructed to remain seated and given an enormous basket which I thought was for browsing in the hope that we’d fill them up. Wrong!! The shopkeeper then went through every product again. “Who wants to buy the mint tea? Who wants the mint tea?” (Silence from the audience) “Who wants the mint tea? Who wants the mint tea?” (Again silence from the audience). Then, on to the next product. “Who wants, who wants?” Ahhhhhhh!!!!!! After a while, we all escaped one by one as she’d turn her back to select the next tonic. Our poor guide didn’t make much commission from this episode.

Morocco – we loved it!