Wednesday, 4 October (Day Seventeen)
Today I went to Asti. I’d made a list of a few places I wanted to go instead of doing one big trip and four made the list – Alba, Asti, Bra, and Ivrea. After two and a half weeks I finally was doing one of them – the closest – Asti.
We got the train from the main train station of Porto Nuovo. On our previous two visits to Torino the station was under renovation – tarpaulins, scaffolding, general massive detours. This is the first time the station has been completely finished and it’s quite a lovely building on the outside in general, with its different coloured brickwork. The tram stops are also new and clean. Inside the station, it’s not totally clear where everything is – is there a station that does this well? – but after reading the instructions online on how to get tickets etc we found it easy to show up, use the machine (with English instructions) and collect our tickets.
All the trains start here and line up nicely on the platforms – a very open set up compared to either London or Toronto. Our train is very clean with dark blue vinyl seats, enough facing forward to make us happy, and no tables or power points. But the journey is only about half an hour.
Asti is described as a very pretty medieval city, known for its wines. Like most of Italy, it claims to have very good food. I’m a city person and always sceptical about anything that’s not very urban. But this is an adventure and I’m in for anything.
I really didn’t like Asti. I was willing to try and very optimistic. I’d pictured it being pretty like the Cotswolds, with charming restaurants and markets and smiley people. It just wasn’t. It wasn’t picturesque at all. It was a small town with a modern look, mixed in with some very old areas. There were two markets – a big one where we could see mostly clothes, and later we saw a little one with half a dozen stalls selling fruit and vegetables. In the large market square they hold a horse race called the Palio. This has been happening since the 1200s and attracts a lot of visitors. That was back in September. On our travels we passed a museum devoted to this race and a man hurried out to let us in. We declined and I walked about with the guilt of refusal for hours. (I know…) I don’t like horse racing. I think it’s cruel.
