The UK is great, Europe is even better, and Italy is the cream of the crop - which is why Claire and I recently decided to take advantage of the ridiculously cheap flights and spend a long weekend in Turin.
We flew out of the UK at on a reasonable 9:20am flight (usually the cheap ones are at 4 in the morning or something stupid like that, we lucked out this time) and arrived in Turin at about lunchtime.
Having arrived we headed straight to our swanky hotel, the Art Hotel Boston which had a special "Torino Weekend" rate which included a pass which got us into any museum or on any public transport all weekend for free!
After settling into our luxurious room we headed out to checkout the city, heading straight for the main shopping streets of via Garibaldi and via Roma, which were bustling with fellow shoppers all out looking for a bargain - most shops seemed to be peddling woman’s fashion and leather shoes, which suited Claire down to the ground.
After browsing the shops for a couple of hours, and making mental notes of where we wanted to return to tomorrow, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for our next exciting Italian cultural experience, going to see the local football team Juventus!
We jumped on the bus and headed out to Stadio Delle Alpi, along with a couple of local supporters and handful of other Brit football tourists (ironically it’s cheaper to get a flight and a ticket to the football in Turin than it is to get a ticket to the football in London).
Once we arrived at the stadium and FINALLY got through the gates (took 30 minutes to get through the queue, missed the first 15 minutes of the game!) we took our seats and watched the remainder of the game.
The Fans were a noisy lot, they spent most of the game singing songs, banging drums and waving their flags. At the end we didn’t know what the final score was - we saw Juventus score (a great solo run from Del Piero resulting in a goal) but as there was nothing resembling a scoreboard in the ground, and we’d missed the first 15minutes – we couldn’t be sure...
The next day we headed back to Via Garibaldi to find that most of the shops were now closed (!!) but luckily the streets had been filled with local produce and the local food market was in full swing!
Claire and I spent ages wandering up and down the stalls buying loads of yummy Italian food, but the end of it we had a block of parmesan cheese, polenta, olive oil, pesto, honey etc etc - all in large quantities and at ridiculously cheap prices - we've been eating like Italian kings ever since!
That afternoon we went to the Museum of Cinema, which is situated in the Mole Antonelliana - the world’s tallest stone building.
The Mole is an interesting building in itself, originally built as a synagogue, construction was fraught with problems (apparently it’s not very clever to build tall buildings out of stone) but the end result is quite spectacular.
On entering the building you’re ushered downstairs to the basement and into the queue for the elevator to the viewing platform at the top of the building.
After a brief wait (nothing like the wait for the lifts in the Empire State!) you get into a glass elevator and go whooping up through the ceiling and into the main chamber of the building. It was an amazing first view of the museum, but I must admit the thought of being suspended by tiny steel wires whilst hurtling skyward and being able to see the ground below gave me a touch of vertigo... eek!
The viewing platform above was nothing to write home about (mainly due to not being able to see anything through the smog), but the rest of the museum was very good, taking us from the origins of cinema, through to some of the groundbreaking movies of last century - everything was presented in a very interesting and hands-on way, this was potentially the best museum I’ve ever been to, it’s well worth the visit if you ever find yourself in northern Italy.
That evening we wanted to go out for a slap-up meal, but unfortunately all the posh restaurants in Turin close on a Sunday night, so we had to go to the local pizzeria instead - luckily the food was still amazing - this seems to be a trend actually, I think you could stop at the grottiest service station in the back of beyond in Italy and the food would still be amazing, they certainly know what they’re doing food-wise.
The next day we headed back home, we actually got to stay in Italy a little longer that we expected, due to a four-hour delay, I do love airport departure lounges - luckily it was Italy, and they weren’t that concerned about us wandering backwards and forwards through security.
Stay tuned for more updates soon, as we’re off to Paris next month, on another European weekend break - Hooray!
Here are the pictures, for your viewing pleasure:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/drivebytourism/sets/1176127/
