CioccolaTo

It was Saturday evening. It had been a lazy day. After a long lie-in, I had been to the market with Mr A, we had lounged around the house, cooked dinner and watched some TV. The weather forecast for Sunday was nice and Mr A's car needed a day out somewhere, so we were discussing possible places we could go without much enthusiasm. Nearly everything here shuts on a Sunday, and unless you know what you're looking for, it's very easy to end up visiting a ghost town and having to promise yourself that you'll go back another day when you might see something more than closed shutters and deserted streets.

Then Mr A, who was browsing on the internet, said, “There's a chocolate festival in Turin.”

“Eureka!” I shouted. “Take me, take me, take me! Drive me down that autostrada like an Italian on speed, for I do not want to miss a minute of it!”

Actually, being British and reserved, I probably said, “That sounds nice,” but Mr A understood the hidden subtext and so, first thing on Sunday morning, we found ourselves on the way to Turin.

The fact that the main market part of the fair was not on any of the three squares listed on the official website caused me to recall with some anxiety my last visit to Turin, but we eventually found it on the Piazza Vittorio Veneto.

The theme of this year's festival was “Chocolate and Seduction” and, if we had been there on another day, we could have listened to experts on one or other subject discussing the links between the two in a series of talks, but Mr A and I were really just there for the chocolate. And boy, did we find it. The whole piazza was filled with stalls selling chocolate in every shape and form, from traditional but exquisite Easter eggs to chocolate salami tied up with string.

Unfortunately, at this point I lost my appetite and began to feel a bit dizzy. This was not my body trying to protect me from my brain's natural gourmandise, but the effects of some evil germs that had clearly decided to invade my body with particularly cruel timing. It probably did my wallet and my waistline a lot of good, however, as I ended up only having a restrained but very delicious cinnamon hot chocolate and a bite of Mr A's chocolate kebab (slices of different pralines wrapped up in sweet bread and covered in whipped cream and caramel sauce. Mmm...).We also bought some gorgeous chocolates to take home, which came in very handy on Monday night when my appetite returned to normal and my body suddenly realised what it had missed out on.

As well as being famous for its chocolate, Turin is also the home of Lavazza coffee, and when I didn't feel like standing up any longer, we went into a coffee shop to try some. Like many Italian products, it did seem to be better in its home town.

Sunday was also International Women's Day and there was another market in Turin which was supposed to be for products made and sold by women but where we also found a stall manned by two burly men who gave us grappa to try from bottles decorated with pictures of other burly men, this time with moustaches. In Italy, it's traditional to give mimosa flowers on this day. There were plenty of people selling wrapped blossoms on the street, but after walking past them all afternoon, I allowed myself to be taken in by some guy in a car park who offered me a tiny piece “as a present” and then said “but could you give me some money for a drink?” After a day filled with delicious chocolate and coffee, I wasn't really in the mood to mind.

In Which I Attempt to go to Austria and End Up in Turin

The 8th of December is a public holiday in Italy. It is St Ambrogio's Day (St Ambrogio is the saint of Milan) and also the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. (I read an interesting article in the newspaper about exactly what was and was not immaculate about the conception, but I'll save that for another post.)

My friend and I decided about 6 weeks ago that we wanted to take advantage of the long weekend to go to the Christmas markets in Austria or Bavaria. We initially wanted to go to Salzburg, as both of us have also had long and passionate relationships with The Sound of Music but we decided that was too far away and decided to aim for Innsbruck instead.
Our Innsbruck plans were thwarted by the lady at the train station being incapable of selling me the ticket that I wanted (and which I knew existed from the automatic ticket machines and the internet). In the course of half an hour, she sold me the wrong one twice and I eventually gave up.

Our next idea was to go to Trento, which is not far from the German speaking part of Italy and also apparently has a good market, but my friend was ill for three days and we decided it was too far away for a day trip and chose to go to Turin instead.

We assumed that the market would be near the centre of Turin and relatively easy to find, but when we arrived, there was no sign of it. We walked around the centre admiring the beautiful buildings, the river and the glimpses of the mountains at the end of every street and eventually asked somebody where it was. She told us that it was quite far out of town, too far to walk, and said that we would need to get a tram there. By this time, we were hungry, so we had lunch and then confirmed with the people at the restaurant where we needed to go.

It turned out to be only five stops on the tram and not very far away at all, but when we arrived at the square, all we could see was an ordinary market with a few stalls selling scruffy Christmas decorations in among the clothes pegs and multipacks of batteries. We asked one of the stall holders if this was actually the Christmas market and she said that it was.

A little disappointed, we headed back into town. As we were strolling among the shops, we stumbled upon the tourist office and went in to ask about the market. The woman told us that it was more or less exactly where we had just been. I was on the point of giving up, but my friend, an avid Christmas market shopper persuaded me to try one more time. We walked back to the original market and made our way past the scruffy ironmongery stalls. Then we saw a few scabby Christmas trees and a flea market that was thronged with people. Forcing our way through the crowds, in what seemed to be the back streets of the dodgy bit of Turin, we finally spotted wooden chalets and Christmas lights and smelled the perfume of mulled wine wafting towards us. We had found it!

The market was incredibly busy, despite being so well hidden, but we managed to find four Christmas presents between us, drink some mulled wine, taste grappa at the grappa stall, and get some free samples of incredibly delicious Turin chocolate called Gianduiotto, which is basically very, very nice praline.

I liked Turin a lot. It was like Milan in that it was a busy, cosmopolitan city but it was somehow just that little bit prettier. More than anything, Milan lacks hills, a river or a beach and you never really get a view or feel like you can see the edge of it. Turin has a river running through it and beautiful views and luckily is less than two hours away on the train!