Since I don't want for things to go the way they did for my entry about our lovely little trip to Alta Tuscia (=Northern Lazio) last year, where I had technological issues that prevented me from editing my camera pics for about 7 months and then I forgot almost everything about it (my memory is truly horrid, I'm not exaggerating) and I kinda got lazy and lost all enthusiasm about it, I'm going to make a post about the trip with my horrible phone pictures. After all, the purpose of this entry is precisely to preserve those memories for myself, I hope you guys won't think ill of me if the photos are bad.

( MASSIVE post with LOADS of pics )

All in all it was a great holiday, I am happy about how it turned out, every family member got something out of it. And since one thing I hate about social media is how perfect everything looks - F and I fought a couple of times about silly things - mostly when the girls were complaining about something and we were hot and/or tired. The girls get car-sick extremely easily and they do not like playing tourist, so they took a lot of convincing. Sometimes I felt like a bloody drill sergeant just to get the whole family out of the house in time to reach whatever destination we had in mind for the day (timekeeping is not F's forte)...the usual, you know? And yet this is still my kind of holiday and I feel privileged I got to share it with my family, warts and all.

Written with StackEdit.

Sorry I am so quiet here guys. I think you can understand, though, as briasoleil and I see each other in person only once every two year, so when she's here I try to limit my online time.

Here's the last batch of pics from our Elba stay. ( Read more... )

Yesterday I went to Turin to visit my friend C., who's been living there for the past two years while she's studying for her master's at the Polytechnic Univerisity.

I've been meaning to visit her for aaaaaages but never managed to find the time (mostly because I'm lazy and since Turin is only a two-hour train ride's away from Genova it means C comes back every other weekend and I still get to see her regularly).

Thing is, she's graduating in a few weeks, so this was my last chance to have a wander around town with her. And you know what? The weathergods must have decided to reward me for finally getting off my lazy bum, because we got the most glorious, sunny and definitely spring-like day since...September, I suppose. In hindsight, chances are it was actually the weathergods wanting to have a good laugh at my expense (how very Greek of them). Here I was, naively thinking 'Well, I'm going up north, behind the Appennines, well into the dreaded Po plain and nearly at the foot of the Alps - it'll be cold!', so I wrapped up warm with quite a few layers - of course I ended up sweating like a pig, carrying around all those useless layers in a very bulky bundle the whole day. (Why yes, I am whinging Genoese).

By the way, lilmoka, while I was on the train up I suddenly remembered you actually live in Turin and felt a right fool because maybe we could have met up (if you don't find meeting online people in RL weird or anything, of course - personally I love meeting my i-friends but I know it's not everyone's cup of tea). Only I didn't have your mobile number and of course my ratty old mobile has no internet access so I couldn't even try to contact you on here...Oh well, perhaps next time.

I hadn't been to Turin in quite a long while --I think the last time I was there I was still in secondary school, it was a field trip to the Rivoli Museum and the time before I was in primary school, for the classic trip to the Egyptian Museum Turin has LOTS to offer in the way of museums, for those if you're into that and looking for an Italian destination a bit off the beaten track.

Given my horrid, horrid memory, it's no surprise Sunday felt like my first visit to the city. It was an extremely pleasant re-discovery, anyway.
First of all, despite being the gourth biggest town in Italy, Turin was definitely what we'd call vivibile (Italian, literally 'livable'). It's probably because it's completely flat and built on a grid system, a legacy of its Roman origins, which means that all its streets intersect perpendicularly - a rare thing for historical Italian towns (and extremely baffling for Genoese me - I find all those straight lines a bit disturbing, to be perfectly frank).





See, straight streets everywhere. And on a crips day like yesterday, you could see the Alps peeking in at the end of some streets. Lovely! Of course, C tells me that on the average foggy day you can't see further than you own nose, but hey, we were lucky.

Corollary #1 of the extremely flat, extremely straight and extremely large streets: there's miles of cycling paths and you can cycle everywhere. Guys, I wouldnt' trade living on the Mediterranean for anything, but on a bad day when I'm stuck in a smelly bus in fully-gridlocked Genova, I might be tempted to move somehwere like Turin, where I could just hop on a bike and say goodbye to motorised transport. *wistful sigh*

Corollary #2: Turin people can't park. Look at the cars left in the middle of a road where trams pass both ways!!!! And the waste of space left between each of the awkwardly parked cars, my god, in Genova you'd find your car vandalised by (rightfully fuming) drivers who could have squeezed in there, had you bothered to park decently and tight. Me, the boy and C were all outraged.





The other notable feature of Turin is that four major rivers pass through it: the Po and two of its tributaries, the Po being the only River worthy of its name in the boot. In the sunshine it looked awfully pretty:





If I had to describe Turin in two words I'd say: elegant and poised. You can totally tell it used to be the capital of Italy back when we were still a kingdom. It is, indeed, the closest thing to royal I've seen down here and the adjective regal is actually quite appropriate.




Inside il Parco del Valentino. From right to left: Valentino Castle, two shots of the Medieval Borgo (which was actually built in the late 19th century - fake Medieval stuff, how unnecessary) and the Fountain of the Seasons.





Walking along the Po: a very straight tree-lined avenue, an unmistakable statue of Garibaldi (hero of the Unification of Italy) and the Church of the Great Mother.





The Mole Antonelliana, the symbol of Turin,. It houses the National Museum of Cinema, as the it can be easily guessed.





The heart of royal Turin: Palazzo Reale and the Chruch of San Lorenzo (which was the Savoys' private chapel - the Savoys are our former royal family). As you can see in the thrid pic on the right, the lovely square is marred by a finger-pointing-upwards-shaped monster of a building - guess what? This will come as a surprise to none of the Italians among you, it was built during the Fascism. Seriously, if there was nothing wrong with Fascism already it'd be declared a crime against humanity just because of themonstrosities Mussolini & co had built all over Italy. Ugh.




The Cathedral (rather unimpressive, though it contains the Holy Shroud, for those interested in such things) and the Palatine Towers.





Strolling around the Quadrilatero Romano, the oldest bit of the city centre, of Roman origins. I felt more at ease in the narrower streets (still not what i'd call an alley, by Genoese standards). They also had lovely wrought-iron balconies which prompted one of those endless and amusing word-related discussions Italians are surely familiar with. The Italian word for balcony poggiolo, which we use in Genova, is not used Italy-wide (of course, I found this out in Sicily). It's one of the many 'regionalisms' that always throw us for a loop when Italians from different corners of the boot get together and then have troubles understanding each other as they talk of the most mundane things.

Actually I think I just worked out the perfect sentence to throw at a random Italian and find out where he/she is from. "Could you please go out on the balcony, take the rubbish which is in the shopping bag and take it outside? Be careful, though, bits of chewing gum and cigarette butts might spill out." Hahaha. I dare my Italian i-friends to translate this, I'm sure it'll be fun.





Last but not least, Turin is famous for its chocolate and cafés. Probably because when it's cold and foggy, you just want to hide inside a warm café, sipping coffee and gorging on chocolate. So, C brought us in one of the oldest cafés in town, to taste a typical hot drink called Bicerin (literally - small glass). It was as yummy as it looked.

All in all it was a lovely day. The boy and I decided we'll be paying Turin another visit at some point in the future - we do want to have a good look at the Egyptian Museum, since it's the largest collection of Ancient Egypt aretfacts, after the one in Cairo.