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Asti, Palazza Madama

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.

Square in Asti
Square in Asti
Church on the edge of Asti
Church on the edge of Asti

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The GAM (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art)

Tuesday 3 October (Day Sixteen)

Today is another free museum day. We think we’ll go to the GAM (modern art museum) and the MAO (museum of oriental art). We have about five hours to do all this but we’ll start at the GAM, which is a little further away.

The GAM is in a very lovely area of town. Gorgeous big mansions here, and trees and flowers. Under the closest porticoes are very exclusive shops too. I think I’ll check out if there is a millionaire’s area of town and go ogle. Terrible habit – makes me way too envious – but yeah that sounds like something to do for a half hour or so. But we’re in too much of a hurry today to linger around here. On my list to check back on.

GAM Area

Outside the museum is a pretty amazing sculpture. Looks like they took an uprooted tree and made a mould, and casted it. The root detail is especially impressive.

GAM Tree
GAM Tree

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Fritti Misti!

Monday 2 October (Day Fifteen)

It’s not a good idea to wait to blog. Now I can’t quite recall what happened Monday. Let me see…

After another busy morning we took a bus towards Via Po.

Krish gets a craving for the fritti misti at the local fish shop (considered the best!) and we unexpectedly come home to eat it – it’s going to be messy. There are at least eight large shrimp in there, pieces of octopus and small squid. Delicious but we decide the cheaper market one that has sardines is more satisfying and lot less messy to eat.

First I pop into an art store. It’s as jumbled inside as just about every art shop I’ve ever been in but perhaps more so. The smallest sketch pads are about 7 euros but they are slightly bigger than my purse and I didn’t bring my larger bag so opt out this time. Must try harder on the art things!

Again, Via Po is pretty spectacular. It’s so wide and grand and at the bottom a palace or something that’s pretty impressive – Google tells me it’s a parish church –  Gran Madre Di Dio. It looks grander than that.

Via Po
Via Po

Wandering around these streets is nice too. This is a gentrified area or perhaps was always well heeled. I see so many lovely gates and doors leading to even lovelier courtyards and start to photograph them in a sort of series. You never know what’s behind the gates!

Everything is closed on the way home. So sausages and polenta it is again!

 

 

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Festa del Balon, Palazzo Reale, the Armeria

Sunday, 1st October (Day Fourteen)

I had a busy morning so wasn’t sure how I was going to fit all my plans in:

  • The area Street Festival – Festa del Balon from morning till night
  • Any of five museums that will be free (first Sunday of each Month) – I’d chosen the Palazzo Reale since it’s close by and actually sounds the most interesting

Krish popped down to the festival area while I was busy. He said he enjoyed the music so we headed down briefly to see what else was going on. No music and seems quietish. There was a lady selling really cute hoods so I may get onto her Facebook page and buy one. I like a hood that covers my ears and neck and these really fit the bill.

The Palazzo Reale is not very far away so we walked over there fairly quickly. Pop into the ticket office and the first Sunday of each month they’ll hand over a ticket with no fuss at all. The visitors tour is all upstairs and you enter straight up an impressive marble staircase. The walls are lined with statues and the ceiling is painted, like most of the ceilings in here. Paintings on the wall complete the scene and, as we walk through, I recognise one or two. The Children of Charles I by Anthony van Dyck is one and I wonder if this is original – I do know that Turin has a lot of Dutch collections – not entirely sure what the connection is there.

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The Dream

Several years ago I knew that I wanted to spend a few months – I thought a season – somewhere else. I’d seen a movie with Colin Firth that totally inspired me, A Summer in Genoa.

Something about the idea of transplanting yourself for a while somewhere completely different appealed to my nomadic self. I’d done this before after all but not for many years and usually not temporarily.

I did once go to San Francisco, pretty much on a whim, intending to stay. It was a memorable six months.

I didn’t know where this time. Over the years it has mostly been Porto but somehow it became somewhere in Italy instead. Perhaps it was the language. I’m really not sure.

And then it was Torino. Mostly it was Torino because of Krish. That’s the truth. But there’s more to it than that. I like the market, the multicultural population, the working class areas, the size of it and the people. It doesn’t feel like the rest of Italy so much for some reason. Sure there are palaces and museums (Turin was the first capital city of Italy) but I barely give those a thought.

And then it became two months instead of three. Economics and other things played into this. On my own, I would have gone to a second city for the second month. Somewhere smaller like Bologna, where I at least knew one person, Esmeralda, my teaching friend from Toronto. And I thought I was coming alone for quite some time. It all changed a couple of months ago and then the trains were booked and the apartment rented and that was that.

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