Turin Day 4

On our last day in Turin we took the train to Asti, about an hour southeast of Turin. Asti is on the Turin-Genoa line, so it was incredibly easy and cheap to go there. Here's Kate at one of Turin's train stations, Porta Nuova. It was by far the nicest, cleanest train station we have been to in Italy.

Asti, along with the nearby town of Alba, has always been associated with Piedmont wine, especially the world-famous sparkling Asti Spumante.

The town center is clean (almost to a fault!) and fun to stroll through, with beautiful architecture, churches and towers. There were a handful of small museums too, but it was Monday so they were closed, unfortunately.

As we were there over the lunch hour and into midday, the town definitely observed siesta, and it was more or less deserted until later in the afternoon. Of course, no trip to Asti would be complete without a little wine tasting, and there were plenty of little wine bars (enoteca) around to sample the local product. We knew from our book on Italian wine from Eataly (see previous post) that Piedmont is known for its red Barolo, Barbera (this is popular in California, too) and Dolcetto (not sweet!) wines, along with its Moscato d'Asti and Spumante. These denominations are just the tip of the iceberg however, so anyone who loves wine would do well to visit the area for at least a week.

Despite Rob's broken Italian, this gentleman was nice enough to let us try numerous Piedmont reds (with generous pours and snacks!). We decided on a bottle of Pecchenino Dolcetto di Dogliani 2009 from the area around Cuneo in southwest Piedmont. But we could have easily bought more!

So, with our tastebuds tantalized (or perhaps destroyed) by lots of vino, we returned to Turin for a final evening stroll.

The major streets in the city are decked out with different holiday light schemes. This one had constellations. This was probably the best one, and the photo doesn't really capture how cool it looked.

In Piazza Castello, Turin's main square, there was a large nativity scene hand-carved out of wood. All the Torinesi were out on the town and it felt quite festive. We didn't want to leave!

One last look across the Po River. Arrivederci from Torino!