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Published: March 14th 2009
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On Sunday, March 8th I took a day trip to the city of Torino. This relatively small city was the location of the 2006 Winter Olympics. Vincent and I had meant to take this trip last weekend, but the night before we wanted to go....we ended up getting back to our residence at 4am and our train was at 8am! Whoops. It's a good thing that this happened though, because there was a HUGE chocolate festival going on in Torino this past weekend. It is held in Torino because this is where solid chocolate originated over 300 years ago!
Vincent and I hopped on the 9am train and this got us to Torino at about 11am. Once we got there we met up with Ross and Ping who had just arrived as well. We immediately headed to Piazza Vittorio Veneto for the festival. There was a wide range of chocolatiers that ranged from upscale and very expensive stores to family-run, "Ma and Pa" stores. I preferred the small ones because most offered free samples. We were not shy and immediately started trying and buying chocolate and shared amongst the four of us. My personal favorite of the day was a
small chocolate cake called a 'sacher'. It basically looked like a small cake that the Little Debbie Company or Hostess makes....but it was way better because it was made fresh that day. At about mid-day we realized that we hadn't really eaten lunch yet. We didn't really care because we still had the other 1/2 of the piazza to explore. At one point I spotted a store that was selling shots of Absinthe out of chocolate shot glasses for only 2 euros. I bought a couple shots and convinced Ping to take one with me and had Vincent videotape it. *Absinthe is 144 proof and it is banned in the United States because of its supposed hallucinogenic properties. This is more of an urban myth than anything else, but the ban still remains in the States.* After taking the shot we were able to eat the shot glass. Yahh more chocolate! This was not even the strangest thing that we saw that day. We saw chocolate pasta, huge solid chocolate chickens, and even chocolate beer.
At about 2pm we left the chocolate festival to explore more of Torino. We walked along the Po River (il Fiume Po) which is
Vincent, myself and Ross
Overlooking the city of Torino at a viewing point that we found. We walked up a couple huge hills, but the gorgeous view made it worth it. the heart of Torino's nightlife in the summertime. Walking across the bridge on the other side of the Po River was very nice because it was practially empty as most of the tourists and the residents were at the chocolate festival. Along the way we found a nice restaurant so Ross and I each got a half-chicken and ate it sitting on a bench and enjoying the sunshine. By this time it had warmed up to about 60-63 degrees and there was hardly a cloud in the sky. After the small meal we found a nice hill that we walked up which overlooked the entire city and gave us a gorgeous view of the Alps. We sat up there for the better part of an hour and enjoyed the view and the sunshine.
After walking back down the the hill towards the center of Torino we headed towards the river to a park (il Parco del Valentino). I think we were all a bit tired from walking up and down the hills so we laid down on the grass and we all ended up falling asleep. After our 1/2 hour nap we explored some of the smaller streets in
the center of Torino and went in lots of the shops. We went in a very cool Swiss watch store and a nice bookstore that had a very large selection of novels in English. After coming out of one store, I could hear "A Hard Day's Night" by the Beatles playing. I thought this was pretty funny because I had just been talking to Vincent earlier in the day about the fact that I am a HUGE Beatles fan. When I walked down the street I saw that it was an 4-man Italian cover band called "The Beatwings". These guys were awesome. They even nailed the English accent....but apparently cannot speak a word of English (in a conversation) and just memorized the words in all the Beatles songs. I thought this was really cool and tossed them a few euros.
After the free "concert" on the streetcorner, we headed off in search of a good restaurant for dinner. We settled on a restaurant that had bad service and mediocre pizzas, but it was fun because we ordered a couple liters of the red and white house wine. No meal in Italy is complete without eating gelato, so we walked
Hanging out with "the hot wine gang"
They were dressed really strange, but they were a lot of fun. to a gelato shop that we saw earlier in the day with a line of people out the door. On the corner where the gelateria was, we met a group of Italian university and medical students (dressed up in Medieval-type clothing) who were giving away hot, mulled wine and accepting donations for it. It is exactly what it sounds like: they took red wine and heated it up...and also put cinnamon in it for added flavor. It was delicous, so we tossed them a few euros each and talked to them for a while. Apparently they are in a co-ed fraternity at their university in Torino and were using this as a way to raise money. After talking to them, we got our gelato and understood why there was a huge line earlier in the day. It was delcious. But then again, I haven't had bad gelato yet. At about 10pm we headed to the central station in Torino and headed back home to Milano.
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Papa Joe
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Napping in Torino !!!
FYI, your nap is called a sugar coma !!!