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Touring Turin (Torino) |
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THE SILVER-HAIRED gentleman sits alone at Baratti & Milano, one of Turin’s more opulent coffeehouses, a red silk handkerchief peeking from the pocket of his gray Armani suit. Waiters greet him warmly, as if they are members of his household staff. When he nods off after a plate of pasta agnolotti, they wait a discreet time before bringing an espresso.
“We know him well,” a waiter whispers. “He has taken every meal here since his wife died.”
And when was that?
“Twenty-two years ago.”
LONG AFTER THE SNOW has melted from the Winter Olympics, long after the gold medals have been borne away, Turin, as it is spelled in English, or the more melodic “Tor-EEE-no” (rhymes with cappuccino), remains a stronghold of tradition. Its allure does not rely on Roman ruins, although there are traces; nor Renaissance art, although it is no slouch; nor even the fact it is home to the Sacra Sindone—the Shroud of Turin—the celebrated cloth that may or may not have wrapped the body of Christ, depending on the source of your faith.
The Torinesi simply know how to live. Their pace is less frenzied than their larger, trend-setting neighbor, Milan. They head west or north to ski in the Alps that push against France and Switzerland, and southeast to savor sunny weekends among vineyards and ancient hill towns: Monforte d’Alba, Castiglione Falletto, Barbaresco.
Capital of Italy’s Piedmont region, Turin is laid out in a rectangular grid of vast piazzas, green parks, straight-arrow streets and more than 10 miles of covered arcades. Lined with boutiques, antiquarian bookshops and coffeehouses that rival Vienna’s, the arcades make walking a pleasure—especially for the evening passeggiata, when striding slows to a stroll.
Baratti & Milano, which opened in 1873 on Piazza Castello (site of the 2006 Olympics medals’ ceremonies), is my favorite coffeehouse. Dark wood–and–mirror walls are bordered with flowers painted on glass. Crystal chandeliers glow on gilded ceilings, mosaic marble floors and a glittering array of homemade chocolates: pyramids of gold-wrapped ingots called gianduiotti, a Turinese specialty combining milk chocolate with toasted hazelnuts; and thin, black-wrapped squares of an intense (72 percent cacao) bittersweet chocolate.
The tradition of chocolate-making derives from a royal decree in the 1600s, when Turin was the seat of the House of Savoy. One rapturous result is bicerin, in which espresso, hot chocolate and foamed milk are layered in a stemmed glass. A snug place to indulge in this passion: Caffè Al Bicerin, founded in 1763 on Piazza della Consolata.
In preparation for the Olympics, Turin repaired streets, removed graffiti and restored a civic smile that had flagged, along with the economy, after the 1982 closing of the mammoth Fiat plant. (The name Fiat was coined from Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino.) It put extra polish on the Egyptian Museum (its collection ranked in the top three in the world) and the National Museum of Cinema in the cavernous Mole Antonelliana, an eccentric, tiered tower rising 556 feet above the River Po.
I WAS LAST IN NORTHWEST ITALY in fall, a felicitous season in Turin and the vine-clad foothills to the south. Narrow, two-lane roads corkscrew around operaset villages, crowned with medieval watchtowers and slender campaniles.
The Piedmont region’s hearty “cusina tipica” is based on big red wines, white truffles from Alba, small green gnocchi, flinty cheeses, dry-aged beef, plump porcini mushrooms, tenderloin of veal, braised rabbit and cream sauces. In hilltop Neive, over a “light lunch” at the family-owned La Contea (“light” meaning four courses, instead of the full menu), I heard comparisons with Tuscany.
“The only difference between the Piedmont and Tuscany is that we don’t have so many crowds and tour buses,” a winemaker insists. “That is because we have not yet had a popular movie made here, like Room with a View.”
In Barbaresco (population 634, and home to remarkable restaurants such as the Michelin one-starred Antinè), I park beside the portico of Italy’s oldest cooperative winery. A few minutes after noon, church bells begin clanging: a comic, halfhearted effort, like forks being tapped on a tin plate. Vintner Aldo Vacca glances across the cobbled street and winces.
“Those bells must be very old,” I say.
“More bad than old,” says Vacca, launching into the tale of the good priest and the bad priest.
The good priest was Don Fiorino Marengo, who, in 1958, with the economy still in shambles from World War II, convinced 19 family grape growers that in order to survive they must form a cooperative to boost the name of Barbaresco. The first three vintages, in fact, were made in the church basement. Now, 120 winemakers gather in the town hall each fall to vote on the date for the harvest.
About that time, the bad priest, who remains nameless, urged the villagers to sell their prized 19th-century bells, assuring them that the funds would greatly benefit the church. He promised to secure new bells at a good price.
“First, he collected the money from the parishioners for new bells—which have a very bad sound, as you hear,” says Vacca. “Then he sold the old bells—and kept the money for himself.”
Was he run out of town?
The Italian shrugs and smiles.
“He was not that bad,” he says. “It is not so easy to get a new priest in a small village.”
If You Go
Web sites for information about Turin and the Piedmont region include Italiantourism.com, comune.torino.It and slowtrav.com/Italy/. Trains are the best approach: RailEurope.com. High-speed French trains make the Paris-Turin run in 51.2 hours, and Lyon-Turin is 31.2 hours. Turin is about 90 minutes by train from Milan.
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