Our Travels

September 25, 2024–

Turin, Italy, the Capital of Piemonte, and the first capital of Italy for a brief time in the 1800s:

The shower in this B&B in Piemonte is phenomenal! It has one of those HUGE rain heads, plus a hand-held wand, and four spray circles for the middle part of one’s body! I do not know how to make it work the way I’d like just yet, but I will try again tomorrow! As for today, a nice, warm shower was a terrific way to start the day..

There is no laundry facility in this B&B, and we are pretty high on a huge hill—there is no laundromat in the town of Montabone, either! So, our SuperHosts offered to do our laundry for us while we explored the area today! Who does that?!?! These hosts are simply OUTSTANDING! When we returned from our travels today, our wash had been done and was (still is, from what I understand) hanging to dry outdoors! Fingers crossed that it does not rain tonight.

Breakfast was great, as usual! Today, we had pesto and tomato/garlic bruschetta, left-over sunflower sandwiches from yesterday, the rest of the cheese and nuts, more raw carrots, caramel flan, cooked prosciutto in a fried/baked Parmesan basket, red orange juice, water, yogurt if we wished, as well as homemade crostata of two different flavors, fancy cookies and lemon cake (store bought but locally sourced), and so on. Coffeee was served at the end in the cutest black face-carved mugs with lids spotlighting a tiny black cat on top. (The decor in this B&B is nothing short of artistry! No stone is left unturned!). We are trying to let our hosts know that we so appreciate all of their hard work and the wonderful food they have been serving us—and that we typically do not eat this much at home. We do not want to offend because they say they do not eat this way when they’re alone, either, but that they love to make these things for company/guests/special occasions. In other words, we are company, guests, signifiers of a special occasion! Our role, I understand, is to graciously and gratefully accept their kind, kind thoughtfulness.

I wasn’t crazy about going to Turin at first. We live in Chicago. Why would we want to go to a large city in Europe? BUT—it turned out to be a PERFECT day! Even the weather, having begun with fog on the mountain top, turned into a clear, partly sunny day in comfortable 70s. Turin is a fun and bustling place, with loads and loads of history dating back to the Middle Ages. There are several large piazzas, and we visited three, beginning with the Piazza San Carlo. There are covered, marble-looking walkways composing a shopping galleria for stores, shops, some offices, cafes, and other historical markers. There was at least one major Church there, which is currently being renovated/repaired. There are fountains in a second Piazza, statues, palaces, instrumentalists and singers taking turns in the middle of the piazza…. But the third piazza had the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist! The paramount importance of this Cathedral to me is that this is where The Shroud of Turin is held!!!! We were informed that the actual Shroud is not what we can see; rather, we see a duplicate of the Shroud. The actual Shroud dates back centuries and is extremely fragile. Thus, it is rarely displayed in public, and it does not travel. There is some controversy about its authenticity, and so on, but people have been venerating it for centuries. I, too, have always been in awe of what this precious cloth might be, and seeing The Shroud of Turin’s repository in person has truly made my day/Italy trip incredible!

We stopped for a cafe at the Cafe Torino, an old cafe dating back centuries already! We shared a Piemontese Giandujo Pistachio. The presentation was spectacular, and it tasted sort of like a flan/pudding, with crushed pistachios and whipped cream. It was delicious! On the marble galleria floor steps away from our table was an image of a golden bull. It turns out that legend has it that anyone who steps on the testicles of this bull will have good luck. This is one of those stops for tour groups, as you can guess.

We grabbed a panino to go from a small grocery store near these roccas (forts), palaces, Churches, shops, and so on. We were determined to get back to our B&B before it turned dark this time! My focaccia was stuffed with a Toma di Bra (Bra is a neighboring town), and Dad’s bread roll was filled with his favorite: roast beef.

We made it back to the B&B before dark for the first time, alleviating much anxiety about driving up, down, and all around this tall hill, and, as the workers who had toiled to hand-harvest the grapes all day prepared to go home for the day, as the truck carrying the stacked bins theiri hands had filled to the grapes’ destination for the night, we were treated to some of the prettiest setting sunlit skies over the langhes of the region. Once again, a GORGEOUS day in Italy!