Tuesday 19 September (Day two)
Today has been a bit of a reacquaintance day! We wandered through the Orologio indoor market and loved the displays there. I noted that the market was 101 years old this year – at least I think that’s what the signs were saying. I found the places to buy burrata and meats and we remembered the beautifully pre-prepared meats, rolled, breaded, or stuffed – to cook at home. This seems a good way to go while away from home and without all the kitchen tools we don’t have here. We decided we will invest In a great pan to cook in, one that we can take home afterwards, as well as a chopping board and a good grater. These things will be great investments in this time away.
Then we walked through the open air market briefly noting the zucchinis with blossoms attached, bunches of chillies, and mounds of plum tomatoes – it must be canning season. I’d love someone to invite me to a homemade pasta with homemade tomato sauce dinner! Then onward.
We were headed for the Tourist Information centre so we could find out what events to attend and which tours were open – we particularly want to see the Caffarel chocolate tour and that’s on 27 October. We’ll book it online. The centre was full of people and only one couple who spoke English. Seems Torino’s tourist population is still mainly other Italians. The centre is in the central of town in the  Piazza Castello with its grand palaces – the Royal Palace of Turin and the Palazzo Madama.
Here you can really tell that it was once a royal place, back when Torino was the capital city. Almost without thinking we headed over to the Mole Antonelliana.
A mole in Italian is a building of monumental proportions. And so it is! It’s the iconic symbol of Turin. It was originally built as a synagogue but now houses the Museo Nationale del Cinema, the tallest museum in the world. From the outside it looks like a metal building it is, in fact, a metal structure faced with stone.
The Mole Antonelliana is the tallest unreinforced brick building in the world, having no steel girder skeleton. (built without a steel girder skeleton). There’s more to its early history than this and it’s worth reading about. There’s a gift shop selling cinema memorabilia and there’s also the famous elevator. The first time I rode in it, my usual elevator phobia melted away into wonder. The elevator has no shaft but is lifted into the glorious golden dome with cables as if suspended in space. My jaw dropped. The view at the top is nice too. And after all that, I have to tell you it’s closed on Tuesday so we didn’t go in, not that it was on our list.
The Mole is very close to the university so we wandered through the area. Today there were a lot of students milling about and chatting in the cafes. I hope to be enlightened by my stay here and some Instagram follows but there isn’t much in the way of street art, although there are the usual scrawlings and tags. I did photograph some pieces that I know were there when I’ve visited before but we aren’t really sure why there isn’t more. Opportunity!
By now my legs were really sore and I thought my knees would give out so we started to head back avoiding the city centre. We saw a wonderful mustard coloured building. One section was very slender and it seemed possible that each floor might be a separate apartment. If so, it would have windows on every side – incredible! There’s a plaque there that told us the building is called ‘Slice of Polenta.’ That’s a fun fact. It even has its own chapter in Atlas Obscura – http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/fetta-di-polenta. We were struck with it immediately and it turns out that it’s the same architect that built the Mole, Alessandro Antonelli.
My sore legs kept me going just into the market building again where we bought a panino con porchetta from the only open lunch counter and then into the farmers market to buy some lettuce for a salad. The seller wasn’t at all pleased when I asked for just one lettuce. She sells three for a euro. We just can’t buy that much. At first she asked me for ‘trenta’ (30) but kept insisting it was ridiculous I was buying only one and changed her mind to 50 by handing me back just 50 cents. I was in no mood to argue but she’s lost a potential customer.
The market was closing, the day was done – what harm in selling a lettuce that might go to waste? Arriving back at the flat, ready to wash the lettuce and make a salad with it, adding some plums and some tomatoes, I discovered the leaves were mostly rotten. That’s it, then! No more visits to the lettuce lady.
We had a very hot lunch on one of the balconies – the panino, some left over pizza, some octopus salad (both left from the night before) and the salad. Nap time!