Turin

After a brief (in relative terms) trip to Sicily, just in time for the Vendemmia (the somewhat traditional picking and barefoot pounding of the grapes) my big brain partner who has a PhD and I stopped in Turin on our way back to London.
I had spent a weekend there at the beginning of the year for a tech conference, and immediately decided to come back to do a proper tour.

Turin is a popular destination for people moving away from Sicily so we had no trouble finding some friends to host us for a few nights.
We went for a fairly loose schedule and even had the luxury of a few days off. On the first day, we visited the Museum of Oriental Arts in the morning, stopped to have lunch and went for a gluten free version of a typical pan pizza at “Il Padellino” restaurant, and then visited the (massive!) Egyptian Museum in the afternoon.

Some interesting differences in styles!

On the second day, we visited the “Mole Antonelliana” which hosts one of the highest viewing platforms in Turin.
We got on the elevator first, then visited the inside which hosts the national Cinema Museum, and a temporary exhibition on Tim Burton.

We had lunch at Freedom lounge bakery, a gluten free bar and bakery, and after that we went on to the Lavazza Museum, where we saw the ISS coffee machine and had some specialty coffee (duh!).

We were lucky enough to be blessed with great weather, so on the third day we visited Parco del Valentino in the morning and Villa della Regina in the afternoon. I have to say, the Villa was a bit underwhelming, but the gardens and the view from there made up for it.
The lunch on the day was quite special, as I spotted the “Turinlanga” gastronomy, which specialises in gluten-free dishes from the Piedmont region. We got a pumpkin flan, beef “agnolotti” with beef roast sauce and tiramisu’ ’cause, why not?

On the fourth day we drove to the Car Museum which, believe it or not, had plenty of cars on display from all around the world, all kept in fantastic state!

We then moved to the Lombroso museum, the Fruit Museum and Anatomy Museum.
One of the three was very underwhelming, but I’ll let you guess which one!

The following day we took it easy and went for a walk around town with no set destination.
In the evening we had booked a table at “L’oca Fola” restaurant, a trattoria that offers typical dishes, to celebrate my birthday and anniversary.

On our last day in Turin we visited the surrounding hills, the “Langhe”.
We went for a hike in La Morra to see “La Cappella del Barolo” and then spent the afternoon in Barolo (yes, where the wine is made!) to have some wine.

We had dinner with friends at home one last time and then packed our bags.