Advertisement
Published: January 29th 2012
Edit Blog Post
Porta Palazzo Market
Citrus galore! Got in trouble for taking this pic, but it was worth it! This week started off with a BANG. The bang being food poisoning (Samantha insists that it was the bug that's been going around, but I'm convinced otherwise). I won't go into too much detail about how awful it was, but it left me pretty much out of commission for 2 days (one day of being sick and a second recovering), and has made me fear eating. How can I fear eating in Italy of all places? I curse my delicate stomach that freaks out at anything out of the ordinary. Hopefully I can train it to MAN UP in the next few months...
Just a small bump in the road, I got over it pretty quickly and the rest of the week flew by. The days are starting to go by faster which must mean that I'm adjusting quite well. I'm happy to say that I'm now officially NOT an illegal immigrant, and I (clearly) haven't yet been killed by a crazy Italian driver. THUMBS UP!
On a different note, little Gaia is giving me a run for my money, and really good practice for my future career as a teacher. She's extremely strong willed and pretty much identical
to me as a child. For those of you who knew me as a child you'll understand and this is my official apology for my past behaviour. For those of you who didn't know me then (lucky for you), the fact that some of my cousins have called me "a little terrorist" might help you understand. We have good days too, though! Today we made a snow man together, the first one for both of us in a couple of years 😊
The highlight of my week was my trip to Torino (Turin) yesterday. Recognize that name? That's probably because it's where the 2006 winter olympics were held! woo! To be honest, it wasn't one of the places on my travel wish list but with Paolo back working in Turkey, Samantha at a funeral, Gaia at her ski lesson and Jacapo at a swim competition, it seemed like a good day for a little trip.
Unfortunately this happened to be the first day since I've been here that mother nature decided to have a hissy fit. I guess it had to happen eventually and the cold weather and slush drops falling from the sky didn't stop me from
making the most out of my day.
First let me voice how much I LOVE (or hate, rather) public washrooms here. I don't think they've received the memo that a hole in the ground is NOT a toilet, and people generally use TP so it would be nice if they supplied some. Needless to say after this nice experience I vowed not to drink anything all day. This plan didn't work.
My first stop of the day (after the "toilet") was the clothing market. Every saturday morning a street is closed down and you can come rifle through the giant array of designer and knock-off items, as well as some of the most random pieces of cloth you've ever seen. Where they find these things, I have no idea.
Next, I made my way up to the Porta Palazzo market. This was definitely the most worthwhile part of my day, a market-lovers heaven. Surrounding Porta Palazzo is an additional local farmer's market, a flea market and an indoor market where you can find bakeries, butchers and cheese shops galore. This makes the market seem even bigger than you originally thought. Porta Palazzo in itself is a fascinating
experience and I think I really experienced culture shock for the first time when I found myself caught in the middle of the action, clutching onto my backpack for dear life. Venders here come from the south of Italy every day to sell their fresh fruit and they scream their prices for everyone to hear. It is extremely busy and loud and amazing. My favourite part was seeing the leaves on the oranges and lemons. Since the citrus in Canada is shipped very long distances and in mass quantity, you never see the leaves. Of course they HAVE leaves, they grow on trees, for some reason it's just not something we think about.
After buying a croissant for breakfast, I headed into the city centre to see some of the sights. I was a bit bummed out that the weather was so bad as it was terrible for picture-taking. I saw an old roman gate, and about a thousand palaces and churches (few of which you can actually go inside). I even wandered about 5km up hill to where there is said to be the best view of the city, but not on a day like that. On my
Elevator
The coolest part of the cinema museum way back down, I stopped for a cafe macciato at cafe vittorio venetto, one of the many historical cafes in Turin.
It was only midday when I began to run out of things to do and I was quite cold and wet by that point so I took shelter in the National Cinema museum. It wasn't really my thing, but it was well worth the 7 euros to use a real toilet and get warm! Eventually I made my way back out into the storm to find something to eat. This proved to be quite difficult as nowhere serves food between 3 and 6pm.
After gauging on a massive pizza, I reentered the storm just in time to see a huge euro-style protest. They were protesting the construction of a high-speed train through the mountains that will connect Italy to Switzerland and France. Hundreds of protestors marched down the main road yelling and writing with spray paint "NO TAV"! Sometimes I wish people at home were that passionate about politics, but it really is a european thing.
All in all, Torino reminded me of Paris with its wide boulevards lined with cafes, and the po river acting
mmmm Pizza!
I ate the whole thing... as the Seine. I think I prefer Paris though. Something I have definetly learned about myself through my travels is that I like to explore small towns and villages. I feel as though they have a kind of charm you can't find in cities, or maybe it just takes longer to discover the charm of a city.
In the end, a worthwhile trip, but glad to be home in my warm bed 😊
ciao!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.111s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 11; qc: 47; dbt: 0.0856s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
OOE
non-member comment
Be careful with the picture taking m'dear!
Don't want you to get arrested for pictures of a protest and oranges! Haha! Great pictures though, very beautiful. I'm happy you are getting good discipline lessons with Gaia, which will definitely come in handy once you're running around in a kindergarten classroom! Is she named after the Goddess, do you know? Good to read some news from you, and sorry to hear about the food poisoning! Much love, OOE p.s. I cannot imagine you being a "little terrorist", did you have a personality surgery in your adult life or something? You are so quiet!!