Saturday, 11 November (Day Fifty-five)
Today we decided that we’d go Moncalieri. We’d seen a TV show where they were making tripe in the town square, and Liat had said she’d heard it was pretty. Saturday is a good day to travel to these little places since they will be a bit more lively than during the week during work hours.
To get to Moncalieri, we decided to do the whole journey by bus. We’d go to Piazza Madama Cristina in San Salvario and change to the longer bus ride up to Moncalieri.
At the piazza, we realised that we hadn’t yet checked this market out on a Saturday. one side has clothing and other merchandise and the other side has food. We headed for the food! And along the way we saw some curious sights.
It’s a quite lovely market. Much more compact than Porta Palazzo but I think the food looked a bit more fresh…or maybe it’s just the lack of confusion when there are so many less stalls.
The bus took us away from the city and past some very lovely hillside homes. And then we were there.
It’s a pretty ordinary suburbian experience and we were puzzled about where they cooked the tripe or how pretty it might be considered and then we saw a building with an archway entrance so decided to explore.
Eureka!
Through the arch and there are cobbled streets. I feel like Alice falling down the rabbithole, except I was climbing upwards. Suddenly I was in a ‘hidden’ town. There were some high end shops along the way, forks in the road revealing more promised cobbled streets, stairways leading upwards or down, and eventually we hit the town square.
No market here and not many people. Surprising for a Saturday. At what might have been the town hall, though, there was a gathering on the balcony – a wedding perhaps? Otherwise, things were quiet. We climbed even higher and reached the Castello di Moncalieri. Sadly, we weren’t allowed in since we hadn’t reserved but apparently there are royal apartments in there.
It was foggy everywhere. We’d seen it as we climbed, and knew there wouldn’t be a view. It would be a lovely area to come for photographs otherwise. The whole hilly village is quite beautiful and well worth a visit. It would definitely be on our list on a clearer day if we return to Torino. For now, it’s been hard to choose a few photos to show what we saw.
Oh and no tripe!
Back in town we relaxed for a bit. Liat had said she might come by with her friend, Sarah, who was visiting from London. First they were coming, then they weren’t, and then – after we’d both napped – the visit was on again.
They brought some great cheese aged with grape seeds, a big bag of olives, spiced, herbed, and garlicky, some bread, and a bottle of wine. Since our original plan was to go to Apericena later, I wasn’t sure if I could fit it all in! It was a gorgeous evening.
Then our plans changed and we were going to Cianci Piola. I walked Liat and Sarah through part of the market, which was being taken down, through the Porta Palatina and on to IV Marzo. The servers at Cianci Piola opened the patio and turned up some warmers and we were all set.
Since Sarah was turned down for ‘a tris’ of all the pasta primi dishes, we decided to go with one each and then share them out amongst ourselves. There was a tajarin with rabbit ragu, and two gnocchi dishes of sausage and broccoli, and of leek, pumpkin and gorgonzola (called gorgo on the menu). We put that together with some sparkling water and a litre of prosecco and split two desserts of bunet and the house special ‘coppa,’ which has vanilla, hazelnut cream and coffee flavoured biscuit. Yummy!
The little square was filling with people, many who wanted our seat, and with fog. We could barely see across to the other side. Then we popped into the Piazza di Citta to see the Lights, and back to my flat through the dark, foggy streets.
A lovely day!