Blogs from Turin, Piedmont, Italy, Europe

I realise you can't predict weather with any accuracy, but Turin was now beginning to wear our patience. It had now been raining constantly since Friday evening. We awoke Monday morning and it was still as bad as ever. Will there by an end in sight? The forecast suggested a positive outcome, but then we had seen previous lights at the end of the tunnel. Breakfast was quiet. The weekend visitors and people in town for the Turino match had now departed and it was just a few business types and the random English football tourists looking for sunshine. We followed our usual route towards the Lingotto centre. There was another Italian Job on the cards. The first movie location today was the Palavela down near the Motor Museum and the river. The strangely shaped, futuristic ... read more

If you mention that you are visiting Turin, the inevitable football question comes back to Juventus. The looks of confounded disbelief are much in evidence when it is revealed that the objective of the mission is their cross city rivals, the Granata otherwise known as Torino FC. Torino are these days the forgotten team, consigned to perceptions of mediocrity by the sweeping success of their neighbours. It was not always so. As you might have read in my first blog of the trip, the all conquering Torino team of the late 1940s were all set up for a period of dominance similar to that currently being enjoyed by the Notts County impersonators. Disaster struck in the form of the 1949 Superga disaster which effectively wiped out the entire Grande Torino team and the Serie A would ... read more

In late May, the European Conference of Work and Organizational Psychology took me to Turin in Italy. I arrived there in the evening and met a few acquaintances in the airport. They were, of course, going to attend the conference as well. We shared a taxi into the city, I checked into my hotel and then met my former colleagues Richie, Lena, and Mats for a very tasty Italian dinner. The Italian cuisine is one of my favourite cuisines, and I love Italy in general: not only the food, the ice-cream and the coffee (I usually drink way too much coffee when I’m there just because I like it so much, so my heart is racing quite often), but also the people, the language (it is so passionate), the landscapes, the many historic sites one can ... read more

Turin, the home of Fiat. Why did we want to stay here? Originally we had planned for a three night stay but as it got closer to book our accommodation we decided two nights would be enough. After yesterday’s awful drive we are pleased we decided on two nights. Our apartment is comfortable and we don’t mind the slow start today. Once we get ourselves organized we’ll visit a tabacchi and buy two 24 hour bus tickets. It is only a short distance into the centre of Turin but the bus is best. Last night’s washing is dry, a breakfast of cereals, yoghurt and some brioche filled with apricot jam purchased that morning (we think baked the day before), the day planned, and we’re off. We walk to the nearest tabacchi, not that close, and get ... read more

Woolly says – Having left the tusk and trunk eating baby behind for the day, an hours train ride left us in the centre of Turin.......well it would have done if either of the women had a sense of direction! Having left the station we turned right, an hours walking and we seemed to have discovered the suburbs, in the interests of helping my paws and not covering more miles than necessary I went for the sensible option of asking for directions and then having retraced most of our paw steps back towards the train line we finally found ourselves in what appeared to be a large square with some strange cows which seemed a little random. Pizzia Reale is home to The Royal Palace of Turin, originally built in the 16th century and modernized in ... read more