23 Aout 2015 / 23 Agosto 2015

Bonna serra – We are now in Turin. It is nearly midnight.

After breakfast and packing up at Vieux Platane and having breakfast we headed to Richard and Elizabeth’s for lunch (it’s eat, eat, eat, and more eat..)… and then we left Cairanne and drove toward Turin (Torino).. It would have been a beautiful drive and should have taken about 4.5 hours or so. We set out at about 2:00 and hoped to get to Turin by 7pm… but alas, there were many accidents on the road, there was traffic, it was raining… so the drive was tense, long, and tedious, but we arrived in Turin, pleasantly surprised to be at the wonderful Grand Hotel Sitea… very elegant, in the center of the city and totally equipped (when compared to the Vieux Platane in Cairanne)… all the goodies of a first class hotel.

By the way, the drive from Cairanne to Turin included more than 20 tunnels, some as long as 6 miles… it was tunnel, overpass, tunnel, overpass — over and again — and reminded us of a drive along the Italian and French coast many many years ago … We could see the Alps during most of the drive.. and were basically circling at the base. Only one mis-step on the drive that took us about 20 minutes out of the way.. The GPS is pretty damn good. And the road tolls are pretty high in both France and Italy. It was 43 Euros to go through that long tunnel and some miles beyond.. All in all, I’d say we shelled out about 70 Euros or more in road tolls! You drive the roads.. you pay for them. Sounds like a good plan to me..

Got to the hotel at around 9:30.. and very very quickly changed into warmer clothes.. it’s about 60 degrees here and rainy.. and walked about 4 blocks to a very sweet old-fashioned Torino restaurant called Smaritta.. classic Piemonte fare.. and hit the bill after so many hours in the car. Dinner — Seasonal antipasto.. which included the famous veal and tuna; steak (maybe veal) tartare, tagliatelli with a simple citron touch, veal cheeks, aubergine, and for dessert a ricotta cream with pistachio… and really good local nebbiolo wine.

Turning in now..

Tomorrow and the next day we will stroll Turin — we were last here about 25 years ago.. (and we’re already beginning to sense that we are nearing an end and so work will need attention beginning tomorrow.. always interesting to do it from afar.)

Fern

PS — note that one photo is of a toll booth in Italy. They are covered in phot murals. if you blow up the image you can see the toll collector in the window.. in the tromp’l’oiel castle-like structure image…