I made Turin, Piemonte my home base for the next couple days. I had one primary objective to accomplish while I was here—drink as much Barolo as my wallet and liver could tolerate until I had to leave for Bologna. The stuff is rarely available by the glass or in a tasting in the US, and when it is, it’s invariably at a price that even by the glass will completely destroy your budget. To that end, on my first day here I took a day trip to Alba and Asti. Alba, as in barbera d’Alba, and Asti, as it Asti spumanti, moscato d’asti, and barbera d’Asti (which is entirely different from barbera d’Alba, you brutes!!!!!!). While I’m a big fan of barbera and it’s a regular drink of mine at home, I was planning on concentrating all my euros and available liver points on the blockbuster Barolo and Barbaresco wines of the region, and was hoping to taste as many as I could while there.
Unfortunately, Italians aren’t quite on the tasting bandwagon yet. In both towns, I was unable to find a place where I could get wines in tasting portions. I found a place in Alba that was selling by the glass, but drinking whole glasses at a time you burn through your euros and liver points pretty quickly (not to mention wearing out your palate too fast), and the options there were middling. I asked at the TI, and they said the towns of Barolo and Barbaresco each have a place you can taste their eponymous wines, but these are extremely remote and have completely irregular hours. It sounded like these were a similar setup to the deal I found in Montalcino when I was there back in 2006, and was exactly what I was looking for, but really wasn’t doable at the time. It almost sounds like you’d have to have a car to get there, and by the time I tasted I would be so blasted off my ass that driving would be out of the question, anyways. It was still a good trip, however. I had the best meal yet of the trip at the osteria in Alba I went to for lunch, which included the local tajarin pasta and a killer melon soup with berries that I’m definitely going to recreate when I get home. Best of all, there were pouring a Barolo by the glass which I drank with my veal secondi which knocked my socks off. The veal was unimpressive, but the wine would have made the trip worth it by itself. It was also nice to see the rolling Langhe hills and all the vineyards from the bus going place to place. Asti was also a neat little town.
The next day seeing Torino was on the agenda. Turin is a pretty interesting place. Its heyday came much later that that of most Italian cities, and as such, it feels much more like Vienna, Paris, or Buenos Aires that it does Florence or Rome. There’s lots of art nouveau and other turn of the 20th century style architecture there. This is most clearly evident in all the beaus-arts and art nouveau cafes in the city. So as an obligatory start to the day, I hit one of the quintessential cafes for a cappuccino and a pastry. These people sure know how to do coffee and donuts.
It’s clearly evident when walking around Torino, though, that the former elegance of the city is somewhat faded. Aside from being one of the culinary capitals of Italy (due to its Barolo, Barbaresco, white truffles, and being the home of the international slow food movement), it’s primarily and industrial city. Fiat is based here, and Torino is referred to many as the ‘Detroit of Italy’. The comparison is apt. While is doesn’t have the kind of extreme urban decay that Detroit has experienced the past four decades, the impact of the slow decline of the Italian manufacturing sector is plainly evident. The locals are also very matter-of-fact on this subject (if anything, I’d say there a little overly harsh). While still a very pleasant place, it’s clear that the economy is not what it once was and that the money no longer flows like the fine espressos in all the city’s aging, gilded cafes. Everything I read about Torino compared it to Paris or Vienna in style, but due to the economic factors it reminded me very much of Buenos Aires, both being cities that were booming in the earlier 1900s and with architecture to match, but that are well past their economic primes.
I would be remiss not to mention the important religious artifact in Torino, the shroud of Turin. They’ve got a whole museum dedicated to the thing, which I wasn’t sure if I was interested enough in investing the time in seeing. They did have a copy in the Torino Cathedral that I checked out, and that decided it—I was not going to be spending my time in the shroud museum. There were a bunch of people praying to it, and it took a not insignificant amount of willpower to not be a snotty prick and point out “Um, dude, you know it’s a copy, right?”. Was it even a good copy, or more appropriately was it done to scale? If it was, then Jesus must have been about 20 feet tall because he had a head the size of a pony keg. It was an impossibly clear and crisp image, too, right down to Jesus’ groovy, retro-style porn ‘stache which you could see as clear as if a very talented artist had made a detailed pencil sketch on paper. The impression of the copy left me finding the thing to be only slightly more credible than the images of the Virgin Mary people find in potato chips and are selling on eBay, so I decided no shroud museum for me.
Even better than the Selleck-eque porn ‘stache of the savior was lunch on Tuesday. The dining guide I’m relying on for lots of food-related advice on the trip, “Italy for the Gourmet Traveler", had a recommendation for a very casual osteria in a working class neighborhood far off the tourist path. I show up at the place, and at first was a little confused as some guy who was sitting down eating with his wife asks me “mangiare?” Huh? The guy was the owner, manager, waiter, and host for the place, and was just sitting there chowing away on his lunch. Come to think of it, though, these probably aren’t appropriate terms. The overall experience was much more like going and eating over at somebody’s house that it was to actually eating at a restaurant. Every single person eating in the place was either family or an old family friend that lives in the neighborhood. The food was surprisingly good for as cheap as it was. Because I was apparently the first tourist that had ever set foot in the place, they were pretty interested in me and we spent a good three hours hanging around, eating, drinking, and yapping the afternoon away. By the time I stumbled out of there around 3:30, I think I had had a conversation with half the damn neighborhood. Good times.
Unfortunately, Italians aren’t quite on the tasting bandwagon yet. In both towns, I was unable to find a place where I could get wines in tasting portions. I found a place in Alba that was selling by the glass, but drinking whole glasses at a time you burn through your euros and liver points pretty quickly (not to mention wearing out your palate too fast), and the options there were middling. I asked at the TI, and they said the towns of Barolo and Barbaresco each have a place you can taste their eponymous wines, but these are extremely remote and have completely irregular hours. It sounded like these were a similar setup to the deal I found in Montalcino when I was there back in 2006, and was exactly what I was looking for, but really wasn’t doable at the time. It almost sounds like you’d have to have a car to get there, and by the time I tasted I would be so blasted off my ass that driving would be out of the question, anyways. It was still a good trip, however. I had the best meal yet of the trip at the osteria in Alba I went to for lunch, which included the local tajarin pasta and a killer melon soup with berries that I’m definitely going to recreate when I get home. Best of all, there were pouring a Barolo by the glass which I drank with my veal secondi which knocked my socks off. The veal was unimpressive, but the wine would have made the trip worth it by itself. It was also nice to see the rolling Langhe hills and all the vineyards from the bus going place to place. Asti was also a neat little town.
The next day seeing Torino was on the agenda. Turin is a pretty interesting place. Its heyday came much later that that of most Italian cities, and as such, it feels much more like Vienna, Paris, or Buenos Aires that it does Florence or Rome. There’s lots of art nouveau and other turn of the 20th century style architecture there. This is most clearly evident in all the beaus-arts and art nouveau cafes in the city. So as an obligatory start to the day, I hit one of the quintessential cafes for a cappuccino and a pastry. These people sure know how to do coffee and donuts.
It’s clearly evident when walking around Torino, though, that the former elegance of the city is somewhat faded. Aside from being one of the culinary capitals of Italy (due to its Barolo, Barbaresco, white truffles, and being the home of the international slow food movement), it’s primarily and industrial city. Fiat is based here, and Torino is referred to many as the ‘Detroit of Italy’. The comparison is apt. While is doesn’t have the kind of extreme urban decay that Detroit has experienced the past four decades, the impact of the slow decline of the Italian manufacturing sector is plainly evident. The locals are also very matter-of-fact on this subject (if anything, I’d say there a little overly harsh). While still a very pleasant place, it’s clear that the economy is not what it once was and that the money no longer flows like the fine espressos in all the city’s aging, gilded cafes. Everything I read about Torino compared it to Paris or Vienna in style, but due to the economic factors it reminded me very much of Buenos Aires, both being cities that were booming in the earlier 1900s and with architecture to match, but that are well past their economic primes.
I would be remiss not to mention the important religious artifact in Torino, the shroud of Turin. They’ve got a whole museum dedicated to the thing, which I wasn’t sure if I was interested enough in investing the time in seeing. They did have a copy in the Torino Cathedral that I checked out, and that decided it—I was not going to be spending my time in the shroud museum. There were a bunch of people praying to it, and it took a not insignificant amount of willpower to not be a snotty prick and point out “Um, dude, you know it’s a copy, right?”. Was it even a good copy, or more appropriately was it done to scale? If it was, then Jesus must have been about 20 feet tall because he had a head the size of a pony keg. It was an impossibly clear and crisp image, too, right down to Jesus’ groovy, retro-style porn ‘stache which you could see as clear as if a very talented artist had made a detailed pencil sketch on paper. The impression of the copy left me finding the thing to be only slightly more credible than the images of the Virgin Mary people find in potato chips and are selling on eBay, so I decided no shroud museum for me.
Even better than the Selleck-eque porn ‘stache of the savior was lunch on Tuesday. The dining guide I’m relying on for lots of food-related advice on the trip, “Italy for the Gourmet Traveler", had a recommendation for a very casual osteria in a working class neighborhood far off the tourist path. I show up at the place, and at first was a little confused as some guy who was sitting down eating with his wife asks me “mangiare?” Huh? The guy was the owner, manager, waiter, and host for the place, and was just sitting there chowing away on his lunch. Come to think of it, though, these probably aren’t appropriate terms. The overall experience was much more like going and eating over at somebody’s house that it was to actually eating at a restaurant. Every single person eating in the place was either family or an old family friend that lives in the neighborhood. The food was surprisingly good for as cheap as it was. Because I was apparently the first tourist that had ever set foot in the place, they were pretty interested in me and we spent a good three hours hanging around, eating, drinking, and yapping the afternoon away. By the time I stumbled out of there around 3:30, I think I had had a conversation with half the damn neighborhood. Good times.
