The final trip we went on while our guests were with us was a drive over the mountains and through a tunnel to the Italian city of Torino (Turin). Since it was only two and half hours drive (I love how close everything in Europe is), we decided to only to spend one night there.
We've gotten so used to the structured nature of Switzerland in general that when we arrived in Torino, the driving and navigating was a little hectic - Roy did a great job of getting us there safely, despite a few scary moments of not knowing whether we were travelling the correct way up some roads. We have a tomtom but even with that trusty little device, it's still crazy as hell trying to negotiate our way through the Italian streets. Luckily we have a tiny, Italian car which allowed us to zip around relatively easily. We tucked our Panda in for the night and arrived at our lovely hotel, not too far from the centre of the city.
There's a good tram and bus system in the city and with a few handy tips and good advice from our hotel concierge, we headed into town to explore. We checked out the many arcades lining the streets, stopping here and there to browse the boutiques and have a quick espresso (I don't know how they do it but every place I've been in Italy has excellent espressos - never had anything that comes close in any other country).
We visited the excellent "Museo Nationale del Cinema" where we took an elevator to the very top of the grand and beautiful building for an great view of the whole city.
We admired the ornately decorated buildings, palazzo's and piazza's around the city and stopped in for more espressos along the way. It was fairly difficult to find a place to have dinner at a time we are accustomed to since most places weren't open or their kitchens didn't open until 7:30-8pm. We settled for sushi instead and we weren't disappointed. It's quite hard to find decent and reasonably priced sushi in Europe. We enjoyed it so much that we went back the next day at lunch time.
We checked out the "Museo Egizio" which is the only museum other than the Cairo Museum that is dedicated solely to Egyptian art and culture (source). It wasn't a 'fancy' museum with interactive exhibits but more of a place to admire the achievements of ancient Egypt and to learn about the history.
As we wandered around the city in the afternoon, we found a huge palace which offered free guided tours. Roy investigated by talking to an employee in broken italian and simple english and managed to get us into the last tour of the day. Unfortunately for us, the guide didn't speak any english and out of the six of the tour group, only one spoke italian. He didn't seem like an employed guide - instead an enthusiast who enjoyed teaching italian speaking people about the history of the palace. We listened to him ramble on for about twenty minutes until finally we decided that it was a little pointless. We tried to discreetly leave but as I said before, there was only six people so our group of four leaving wasn't quite so discreet. He waited for us as we dawdled along behind - pretending to read the signs, until finally we put him out of his misery and said that we were going. Awkward but pretty funny.
It was winter and rather cold but it didn't stop us from stopping into an empty gelato shop to sample some of the goods. The lady that worked there was so nice. She gave us samples and patiently told us all of the flavours and even gave us samples of the fresh gelato that had just come out of the churner. It was so delicious!
After our tasty, icy treat we piled into the Panda, said goodbye to the city and headed up the nearby hill to visit a cathedral.
It was a short trip but a nice taste of Italy - especially the gelato and espresso.
We've gotten so used to the structured nature of Switzerland in general that when we arrived in Torino, the driving and navigating was a little hectic - Roy did a great job of getting us there safely, despite a few scary moments of not knowing whether we were travelling the correct way up some roads. We have a tomtom but even with that trusty little device, it's still crazy as hell trying to negotiate our way through the Italian streets. Luckily we have a tiny, Italian car which allowed us to zip around relatively easily. We tucked our Panda in for the night and arrived at our lovely hotel, not too far from the centre of the city.
There's a good tram and bus system in the city and with a few handy tips and good advice from our hotel concierge, we headed into town to explore. We checked out the many arcades lining the streets, stopping here and there to browse the boutiques and have a quick espresso (I don't know how they do it but every place I've been in Italy has excellent espressos - never had anything that comes close in any other country).
We visited the excellent "Museo Nationale del Cinema" where we took an elevator to the very top of the grand and beautiful building for an great view of the whole city.
We checked out the "Museo Egizio" which is the only museum other than the Cairo Museum that is dedicated solely to Egyptian art and culture (source). It wasn't a 'fancy' museum with interactive exhibits but more of a place to admire the achievements of ancient Egypt and to learn about the history.
As we wandered around the city in the afternoon, we found a huge palace which offered free guided tours. Roy investigated by talking to an employee in broken italian and simple english and managed to get us into the last tour of the day. Unfortunately for us, the guide didn't speak any english and out of the six of the tour group, only one spoke italian. He didn't seem like an employed guide - instead an enthusiast who enjoyed teaching italian speaking people about the history of the palace. We listened to him ramble on for about twenty minutes until finally we decided that it was a little pointless. We tried to discreetly leave but as I said before, there was only six people so our group of four leaving wasn't quite so discreet. He waited for us as we dawdled along behind - pretending to read the signs, until finally we put him out of his misery and said that we were going. Awkward but pretty funny.
It was winter and rather cold but it didn't stop us from stopping into an empty gelato shop to sample some of the goods. The lady that worked there was so nice. She gave us samples and patiently told us all of the flavours and even gave us samples of the fresh gelato that had just come out of the churner. It was so delicious!
After our tasty, icy treat we piled into the Panda, said goodbye to the city and headed up the nearby hill to visit a cathedral.
It was a short trip but a nice taste of Italy - especially the gelato and espresso.
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