With Valle Libera behind us, it was time for the first “change of home” of our sabbatical. We ended up deciding to have a new stay in Italy, this time for two weeks in Piemonte. Our host would be a lady who lives alone in a village between Turin and Milan. She is an English photographer who has traveled all over the world and needed help with house and garden maintenance. However, before we arrived there, we still had a long journey of almost six hours ahead of us.
We wanted to take the opportunity to visit some well-known places in Tuscany and Liguria (Pisa, Lucca and Portofino, for example), but the incessant rain only allowed us a very quick and limited visit to Pisa. This city, famous for its leaning tower, is also known for not justifying a long stay despite being included in all tourist itineraries. We ended up sharing that opinion. We had a quick lunch and took a short walk in the rain. Yes, we still don’t have an umbrella and were the target of all the street vendors trying to sell to us…
At the end of the day, we arrived at the house where we would be staying for the next few days. However… there were very few moments when we really felt “at home” here. After a month with Jordie at Valle Libera, it was hard to realize that we wouldn’t be so lucky in Piemonte. It was disappointment after disappointment that led us to decide that it didn’t make sense to subject ourselves to a bad experience and to leave the house a week earlier than planned (and even then, we considered that we had spent too much time there).
In defense of the lady who received us, we caught a week out of the ordinary where it rarely stopped raining and little or nothing of the sun was seen. We believe that the plans she had for garden maintenance may have been sabotaged because of that. However, that do not justify the disaster of planning and decisions about what needed to be done and what was a priority. The first hour of the morning was always lost listening to her list tasks that came to her mind and then saying that it wasn’t worth doing after all. We had to make the final decision about what we could do and then try to figure out the best way to do it. The worst part was when she appeared halfway through the work to say that we weren’t doing it the way she wanted…
It wasn’t just the work that was unpleasant. The house was extremely cold and our bed uncomfortable (except for her fucking cat who decided to pee there). We also weren’t comfortable with the food, as it seemed only acceptable to eat lunch and dinner (and even these meals were not particularly good in quality and quantity). All of this would have been tolerable if the atmosphere and conversations in the house were positive and enriching. But no. This lady lives alone and doesn’t hide the fact that she doesn’t have the best relationships with the people around her: daughter, neighbors, colleagues, etc… In our opinion, this fact made her a bitter, frustrated, negative, and pessimistic person towards the present and the future of the world. We tried at all costs to be a good company and help her in this apparent depression but in the end, it was some comments and judgments from her that ended the conversations. In the end, we made up an excuse and left. Writing now about this experience (a good while after it ended), we still feel a mixture of pity and frustration towards this person. But now this episode is finally documented and closed. Let’s hope we don’t have to describe weeks like this in the future!
It wasn’t that easy to shake off all the negativity that had surrounded us in the last few days but the truth was that we finally had some days just for us. One of the reasons we were able to have this flexibility in changing plans was the finding of a cheap apartment in the suburbs of Turin. Two nights for two people for €67! Before heading there, we had a large part of the day to explore Turin.
We started by filling our bellies at a busy restaurant serving typical Piemontese dishes. We were lucky to get one of the last tables at Piola da Cianci, sheltered from the torrential rain. The food – Tagliatelle al Ragu and Agnello al Forno – was divine (we even asked for another portion of agnello). Although it wasn’t the time for ice cream and many famous gelaterias were temporarily closed, we found La Romana open and tried the March-April flavors. We dare say it was some of the best gelato we had during our stay in Italy.
With full bellies, it was finally time to take care of something we had postponed too much: buying an umbrella! However, it still wasn’t pleasant outside. For this reason, and being the first Sunday of the month (as previously in Rome), we took the opportunity to visit one of Turin’s main museums for free, the Royal Palace. Being much lower in quality than the galleries we had visited in the past month, it was worth it (but maybe not worth the normal price of €15 if you don’t have a particular interest).
Before heading to the apartment where we would sleep, we went to Guido Gobino to have a delicious hot chocolate. When it was time to leave Turin, a race disrupted public transportation and not even the umbrella was able to fully protect us during the half-hour walk to the car. We arrived very tired at our accommodation but it was all we needed after the past few days.
The next day was reserved for a trip to Milan via FlixBus. We paid only €12.95 for a round trip for two people but I think we lost about two years of life with the stress of almost missing the bus. In the end, everything went well and around lunchtime we arrived in the capital of Lombardy. Funny enough, we went to a pizzeria for the first time since we arrived in Italy. We couldn’t have been more pleased with this decision. The colorful restaurant Piz surprised us positively from the prosecco offered at the entrance, to the Neapolitan-style pizzas, and ending with the offer of a digestive shot. After lunch, we had another good gelato, this time in Ciacco (also very known for their chocolate).
It was around this time that we began to have the first signs that the dark days were over (yes, also understand as a metaphor for our state of mind). The sky started to clear and our pleasant afternoon walk was blessed with some rays of sunshine. We didn’t return home as early as we would have liked because FlixBus decided to be almost 2 hours late, but we still arrived in time for a relaxed homemade meal.
We rest for now because tomorrow we’re traveling again. Now it’s time to go skiing in the Alps!
Until then!
Ricardo and Mar