Monday, 26 June, 2017 – Weather cool and wet

First here is Capo’s advertisement for the day:

“We head off to the charming (it’s far better than charming!) old world city of Torino, with elegant boulevards, art galleries, porticos and nouveau café’s. This is where slow food started. Once the capitol of Italy, and the 15th century Kingdom of Savoy it’s also where aperitivi & cocktails started. We indulge in a degustation lunch at the hip Tre’ Galli ristoranti, with our table in a tiny piazza. Then we meet up late afternoon at the world’s first cocktail bar – a fabulous circa 1854 surprise!”

Yes, we are going to Turin today. We hop on the bus relatively early and make the long drive to Turin. It is a great looking city.

We take a long, long walk to a meeting place.

There is a fair bit of time for wandering – read shopping. I spend most of that time sitting in a mall.

Then it is time for lunch at Tre Galli. We have two tables outside under umbrellas, nice setting.

Then some things start to go wrong. Chris Love, who had been under the weather a bit, took one look at the steak tartare and felt really sick. He went upstairs for a rest and eventually caught a taxi back to home base.

Then it started raining. It was supposed to just be a summer shower according to the waitress but it was not lasting and getting worse most of the day. People at the end of our table are getting wet. Shuffling of seats and tables does not really help. Eventually Nola moves to a small table inside. Eric moves down there too. Any way the food comes.

Tony and Eileen had never had raw meat or octopus before. Thus the meal was challenging for them but they did OK.

We took the long walk back to the meeting place. Of course it was in pouring rain and none of us were prepared with it. I was in a school with Eric and Lola. Eric stopped in a pen shop, a watch shop, a smoke shop, a t-shirt shop, etc before I gave up and went to the meeting place.

We all get to the meeting place but two girls did not show up until much very late. Ben goes looking for them and all in all we are much later than expected to get to our next stop. Capo leads us through and across, again in the pouring rain – especially when we walk under some scaffolding. There is lots of lightning and thunder with a couple blasts very near the glass dome of our building, very loud.

We finally arrive at the famous bar where the Martini was invented.

We all order unique drinks from the cocktail list.

Then it is the long, long walk back to the bus in the pouring rain. Then the long drive back to home base. When we get there I am slowly unpeeling the wet clothes when Julie says to come quick as there is to be a tour of the wine cellar.

We were supposed to have picked up pizzas for the night’s supper but somehow a vote was taken without considering those opposed to that notion, and many of us are quite disappointed. As a result, we are back at the Hotel with the kitchen closed. Sweet Jane brings out some cold cuts that along with the guys’ salami and our individual wines brings us some comfort. Thus ends a very busy day.

A lot of us would have liked to have spent more time in Turin. We did not even consider the shroud. Some thought that maybe our next destination could have been swapped out for 3 nights in Turin. We may try to go there again in the future.

Saturday, 24 June, 2017 – Weather Warm but better

Julie goes off for a walk to the market. The official group walk also goes there and Julie connects with them. Meanwhile I stay at the Hotel to work on the Blog since the Internet reception is so good. Some photos from Julie.

Capo buys some sardines which many get into including Julie. This is a surprise for me as she had gotten quite sick with the sardines on our last trip to Spain.

We catch the bus which is a new one and much smaller for the hills we would eventually meet. A new driver too. It is quite a long drive to Piedmont so we stop for a toilet break and panini. There is absolute chaos in the Autostop with people everywhere, service very spotty etc.

We continue along to the west side of Italy (3 hours) to La Morra in Piedmont staying in the Hotel Palas Cerequio. Five of the guys stay in another place because ours is not big enough for our entire group. The Palas is a blend of very old buildings which have been modernized and some new modern buildings. Quite stunning really with magnificent views over the vineyards.

Our room is by the pool and it is a two level place with the top floor being the bedroom and toilet / washroom and the bottom floor the work area, spa, shower. It is slightly inconvenient that the toilet is upstairs as most of the time is spent downstairs.

Most of the guys jump into the pool. I go there too but still in my street clothes. There are a fair number of snacks and drinks.

There is no water in the town. It does not come on until around 10:00 that night. Capo wanted us to dress up but the girls were saying they wouldn’t dress up without a shower. They did anyway.

Chris Love had told us on the bus coming up about his many experiences in Piedmont and why it was one of his favourite places. This included our restaurant for tonight Ristorante Bovio.

There is a lot of discussion about Gavin and Margret – although they had been married 39 years he had never properly proposed. So he did then. I thought Margaret said No but I guess not. In any case, Susan sang two love songs including my suggestion of Its Now or Never.

Then it is on the bus back to the home bases. It is after midnight which has an effect on our starting time tomorrow. The good news is that the water is back on.

Friday, 23 June,2017 – Weather: Stinking Hot

Everything has gone wrong so far concerning the cheese factory visit. But we are on the bus early for an appointment today. Well, things continue to go wrong as there are two addresses and we go to the wrong one. We could just see our appointment being cancelled because of our lateness but when we get there a guide is waiting for us.

We had to cover our hair and feet for cleanliness reasons.

We are here to learn about the making of Parmigiano Reggiano – a premium cheese.

We go back to the first point where the process continues initially breaking up the curds.

We ditch our exotic slippers and bonnets. We are given some finished product to taste – very nice but I find quite rich. We then go out to the main shop to exit.

[Caption id=”attachment_5996″ align=”alignleft” width=”520″] Cheeses for sale[/caption]

So we end our interesting cheese factory tour. We hop in the bus and drive to Ravenna – around 2 hours. Our first port of call is the magnificent Cathedral in Ravenna. For those who know me well, cathedrals are not my scene, right Peter?, so the following photos are from Julie. First a couple of impressive glasswork.

Then into the Cathedral.

Enough of that scheiss. This is a food and wine blog after all. From there we walk the 4/5 blocks, more like 2 KM, to our restaurant.

Food starts coming. Capo calls it nosh, I am calling it Chow.

Then it is back on the bus to return to home base. It is still very hot. When we get back, Julie does a lot of study while I Blog. Eventually we decide to get something to eat. We walk a ways in the heat and I shortly decide I would not go on further. Julie continues on and I go to the local Chinese for, wait for it, some Chow food.

It was a low cost meal and I paid for what I got. In the mean time Julie has gone into the centre where a food festival is on. The following are some of her photos.

Eventually Julie returned and we hit the sack. We did not sleep very well as the air conditioning was not working. Turns out that was because we had a window open and there is an interlock.