A chocolate festival (2-11 March 2012) in Milan's kissin' cousin: Turin

Like chocolate? What a silly question.

From the 2nd to the 11th of March, 2012, in the downtown Piazza Vittorio Veneto of Turin, Italy's chocolate capital, there will be the "Cioccolatò" fair of chocolate....More......

Lots of stands, more than 6,000 different products, and "Spalm Beach"--complete with lawn chairs--where you can relax, taste, and even be massagged with chocolate. (Why "Spalm"? "Spalmare" means to spread...what everyone loves to do with one of Italy's favorite chocolate treats, Nutella, a spreadable mix of chocolate and hazelnut paste...though I can't say I've ever taken to it, Italians go nuts for it.)

Why Turin? Because the city has a loooooooonng love affair with chocolate, beginning with the cup of hot chocolate offered in 1560 by the duke of Savoy, Emanuele Filiberto, to the city to celebrate the transferral of his dukedom's capital from Chambéry to their town, now full of caffés offering this marvelous stuff (it's like hot chocolate pudding...are you salivating, yet?).

Turin is a wonderful city with a long and fascinating history. The pre-Romans were called Taurini (perhaps meaning "people from the mountains," though the symbol "taur" was rendered by the head of a bull, a "toro"), while Romans established a military camp there in the first century B.C. to protect their northern borders. In the early Middle Ages, the city bordered the lands of the Franks, while the association with the Savoy line popped up in the Romanesque period. Love history? Turin's official newspaper, the Eco di Torino, offers some info in Italian with handy pre-fab buttons for Google Translator, which gives you a rough idea of the text in rough English: http://www.ecoditorino.org/augusta-taurinorum-origini-e-storia-del-capoluogo-piemontese.htm.

Want to know more before you go? Turin smartly offers a wide range of official tourism info in English (yeah!), including maps, hotel info, traveling info, museums and events, history in a nutshell, WiFi, etc.: http://www.comune.torino.it/canaleturismo/en/. They also have an official city web site in English (yeah!), with practical information, particularly for English-speakers living in the city: http://www.comune.torino.it/en/.

I can't resist recommending at least two museums: the Egyptian Museum (Museo Egizio, look under "Egizio" on the tourism web site's page dedicated to museums), one of the most important Egyptian museums in all the world, second only to the one in Cairo, and the museum in the historic Mole Antonelliana dedicated to movies (look under "Cinema" in that same list). Even if you're not a great fan of the history of the movie industry, the spectacles of the exhibits are great fun in and of themselves.

Wanna go? Want the skinny? It takes from one to two hours on one of Italy's national train service (Trenitalia) trains, depending on the service chosen. Cost? Reasonable. For a one-way second class ticket on the 1 hour train, it's currently just under E. 35.00(ca. $50), while for the 2 hour train, it's only about E. 11.00 (ca. $15.50). You can check the schedules and buy tickets on their website in English (yeah!), and chose to print out the ticket on your own printer. You can enter these city names in English or in Italian (Milano, Torino), but remember that usually only the more well-known cities have an English version, in case you want to go somewhere else, too: http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=ad1ce14114bc9110VgnVCM10000080a3e90aRCRD.

A "heads up"...Turin, like many other Italian cities, has more than one train station. Sometimes the train stations are dedicated to services belonging to different companies (national and private). Sometimes the city is big enough--as in Turin's case--to warrant two stations. They're often signaled on the web site and in printed train guides only with their initials. Oh man...which one to choose?! For other cities, try Google maps. For Turin, get off at the P.N.--for Porta Nuova / New City Gate--station; it's the most central one. Once there, get a map, and walk. The heart of downtown is small enough so that you won't need to take public transportation if you don't suffer from mobility problems.

Enjoy!

LAST CHANCE to catch a Templar Knight (in Turin)

Yesterday (ahem) in Turin, there was a conference (in Italian) on the "Templars: the real secret." Today is the second and last day of the 18th national gathering of the Knights of the Temple of Gerusalem. Six new knights will be...knighted.

There is a lot more in this photo--snapped on the 29th of July, 2008, at around 10:45 A.M.--about Turin than meets the eye...More...

Turin is a very sophisticated city, and long has been one of the favored cities of the ancient Savoy dynasty (even before becoming kings recently--in an Italian sense of time--in 1861) in their territory that once spread over areas now covering both Italy and France. So they're a bit frenchified.

Let's practice a bit of LOOKING, not just SEEING.

What's in this picture of one of the city's principal piazzas?

A large open piazza with beautiful buildings and a commemorative sculpture. That's a good start. What you can't see in the picture are the churches at the end of the piazza. I always take a peek in churches (be careful not to disturb the sacred ceremonies...the hours are posted just inside, or outside, the entrance). There usually is something lovely, if not famous, to see, and the peace and quiet--whatever religion you do, or do not, practice--is restful. Be a nice kid. Find the charity box--also usually near the entrance--for the maintenance and restoration (mantenimento/restauro) of the church, and drop in a couple of Euros. They have light bills and sweepers to pay, too, and you've just taken advantage of both.

What else is in the photo...a portico...the city has lots of porticos to protect the strollers (people, not just baby carriers) from the inclement weather, whether due to strong sun, or gusty rain. That's a very nice urban touch, which, surprisingly, is not as common as one would think.

The porticos are nice and wide, too, so that gives the sophisticated coffee shops (oh, don't you just love real cloth table cloths and napkins? I do!) more space for open air tables in more kinds of weather. Yes, sophisticated coffee shops are another feature of lovely Turin. And there's a really famous one, which has hot chocolate (chocolate is another of Turin's long time claims to fame) so rich and thick that it's like drinking hot chocolate pudding. Really REALLY worth the effort to go. Trouble is, I can't think of the name, but it's right next door to the little glass-covered gallery off of one of those handy dandy porches you can stroll from the train station towards the royal palace and the Shroud of...Turin (duh).

The Shroud is in a church butting up against the ex-royal palace, but it opens onto a piazza on its other side.

The church opening on the same piazza as the ex-royal palace is by Guarini and DEFINITELY worth the trouble to go. VERRRRRRRY famous. Very intricate ribbing and a centralized space.

Also on the large space opening in front of the ex-royal palace is a fortified building with ancient Roman foundations now uncovered and visible. Also worth the visit.

Like traditional art from Renaissance onwards? There's the Sabauda (the adjectival Italian form of "Savoy") gallery. For all its unique pieces, there are galleries like that scattered all over Italy.

Like Egyptian art? Here, you've hit the jack pot. If I'm not mistaken, Turin has the world's second largest collection of Egyptian art and artefacts after the Cairo museum. Part of the museum is still set up in the old style still suitable to small objects: glass cases, labels, abundant light from the tall windows. Part of the museum was redone a number of years ago to express life and death themes with more impact. Also interesting. Stunning, however, is the more recent makeover of the hall with the large (and some huge) sculptures: dark like the sacred inner recesses of a tomb, or temple, with blinding spotlights, like piercing rays of sun, focused on the individual pieces. Each approach works well, and has different goals.

There's also an armor museum and an oriental museum, if you are interested, but the other museum you really shouldn't miss, even if you're not a movie fan, is the relatively new museum--installed in one of Turin's most distinctive and favorite buildings, the "Mole"--dedicated to cinema. The presentation is...cinematographic. Theatrical alterations of dark and light, color and black-and-white, movement and stillness, traditional passive observation and avant-garde possibilities to interact with the collection (I'm not going to spoil my two favorite surprises!). It's also possible to take the elevator up to the walkway around the top, to get a good view of the city.

Plan at least a long full day trip to Turin. It's a lovely city with lots to offer. If you're adventuresome, there's also a bus service going out to the Venaria Reale, about which I wrote here: http://mymilanitaly.blogspot.com/2011/05/its-just-little-hunting-hideaway.html. It's the fancy schmancy Savoy hunting lodge with beautiful gardens, fascinating interiors being filled slowly, but surely, with recovered original pieces of furniture, and the refurbished stables dedicated to often very theatrically presented temporary exhibits. That's a whole other day, though.

Can you tell I like Turin? I hope you will, too.

"It's just a little hunting hideaway": the Venaria Reale outside of Turin and the current "Bella Italia" exhibit

"Oh, it's just a little hideaway for hunting." It might have started out like that for the dukes of Savoy, but, chosen to be kings in 1861, their ideas for the Venaria Reale ("Royal Hunting Lodge") became much more Versailles-like...More......

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For those who love gardens, these last 10+ years have been time enough for the French-inspired layout (our guide explained: Italian-style geometry plus French-style panoramas stretching into the distance giving the impression--here's my interpretation--of literally being rulers of all as far as the eye can see) to fill in and for the plants--researched for authenticity--to regain sufficient vigor to make a visit very pleasurable. There is a little restaurant for a meal, or just refreshments. (HINT: there are umbrellas at the entryway, take one, rain or shine: we may be in northern Italy, but it got VERY hot, and I sorely wished I had taken the guide's advice.)


The roses already are lovely--all white for purity--and almost completely cover the arbor by now.





Interspersed in the garden are contemporary art installations (more are planned). This one by Giuseppe Penone was a surprisingly enchanting combination of tradition--it looks like just any ol' reflecting pool, itself reminiscent of pools stocked with fish for the household's tables--and innovation: every few minutes what first looked like breeze ruffles on the water's surface (what? on an airless day? how's that happening?) gel, become the thumbprint of the artist, and melt away as fast as it appeared.


The buildings, stripped of their furnishings legitimately and not by sundry, are being reopened little by little. Furniture that had gone "awandering" is being recovered. For now, the structures host temporary exhibits.


Currently, there is "Bella Italia" ("Beautiful Italy") running until the 11th of September, which presents a panorama of Italian history, from the ancient Roman empire up to the Unification under the Savoy. Some of the works are masterpieces (you'll be sorry to miss them, while visiting their usual locations), others are less important artistically, but do their bit to take the visitor, step-by-step, through the millennia of history. The overall plan of the exhibit was a stab at being interesting, though difficult to manoeuvre (unnecessary dead-ends in relatively small spaces made working against the rush of oncoming visitors like being a salmon going upstream) and to interpret. I thought the "stone walls" were crumbling, but the guide said they were intended to seem "in construction," better suited to the "Italy in the making" theme. Splashing the section titles on them in large 19th-century style writing as if revolution-inspired graffiti was a fresh (though discutable) choice, but a very VERY bad choice for the typically small and low-placed labels for the individual art works.


First note to museum staff: please wake up. A large percentage of your visitors are of reading glasses-wearing age (on-off-on-off-on-off...it's very annoying) let alone vision-impaired, and some of them are even taller than a meter/yard (that was sarcasm, in case you hadn't noticed), so please do labels in very large print and put them high enough so a visitor of average height doesn't have to do calisthenics, risking an attack of lumbago from which it would be difficult to straighten up, in order to read them.


Second note to museum staff: please wake up (again). We all produce trash. Have been doing so since mammals emerged and humanoids began loping across plains. What would archaeology be without it? Trash even can be recycled to save resources and used to generate much needed energy. But do we have to have those ugly bins pushed into our faces right at the entryway to the museum's courtyard? I think I see an enormous billboard behind which they could have been hidden (that's more sarcasm, could you tell?).


Thinking caps, folks, thinking caps. Sometimes it's just a question of a few yards, or minutes, that make all the difference in the world.


The Venaria Reale is located just outside of Turin, and is easily reachable by bus. Even without seeing the temporary exhibits, it's well worth the trip, but plan at least an ample half-day for it.


I shot these photos on the 11th of May just before and after a tasty lunch in their little restaurant.