Buongiorno! Today we bring you to Italy, and more precisely to Turin, for 20 days of pizza, pasta, mozzarella etc… Except for a brief border crossing on a weekend, this is the first time we’ve actually stayed in Italy.

Part 1: Travel Diary
Part 2: Practical Tips

Part 1: Travel Diary

Chamonix trip => Turin

Having obtained a late check-out, we leave our rented apartment in Chamonix at 4pm, and wait for the bus in the bar just in front of the bus terminal. I talk about “bus terminal” but it looks more like a parking lot. Our Flixbus is 10 minutes late, the driver only speaks to us in Italian, but we manage to understand that we have to get in the back of the bus.

The Mont Blanc tunnel is narrower and lower than in my imagination. As soon as you get out of the tunnel, the Italian houses and chalets appear and the roof is very different from the one in France I find.

3 hours later we arrive in Turin (around 10:30 pm). The stop isn’t too far from the city center (15 minutes by bus), and contrary to what I feared, there are quite a lot of people around, it looks quite safe.

Bus stop => our Airbnb

We walk a few minutes to the bus stop. I was told that the city could be dangerous, and with our late arrival, I pay attention to everything. At the beginning, I thought everyone was super shady, but afterwards, I understood that it was normal for them to walk super slowly, and look left to right in a shady way (it looks like they “scan” those who pass by in fact).

We get on the bus and there, the driver is protected by a window. Impossible to find a way to buy the ticket. We ask a passenger of the bus and he tells us that it is simply not possible to buy it in the bus. It’s late and we don’t feel like wandering in the street looking for a ticket sales point, so we decide to stay in the bus until the arrival. What a shame! First day in Italy and already we are eating. Pardon me! #mortified

Bus/metro tickets are sold in tobacconists and newsagents and are valid for 100 minutes after validation of the ticket.
All metro stations are equipped with yellow vending machines.

Arriving in front of our Airbnb, our owner waves at us through the window saying “good evening”. She has a great accent in French, and explains everything to us in French. I was only able to place one arrivalerci to make the most of my week of learning Italian😀



Our Airbnb is super spacious, clean as we like it, it’s a nice loft nestled in the center of Turin. We are at 5mn walking distance from all the interesting monuments of Turin. I let you discover our Airbnb in video:

Monday in Turin

We are in the middle of August and the Italians also go on vacation.

In addition, on Monday, a large part of the restaurants are closed.

We follow the indications of our owner to go to Largo IV Marzo and come across this store: Pizzeria Torino IL TAGLIO that sells pizzas by weight. It is so well decorated that JB thought it was desserts.

Here you can choose several types of pizza and the price is by weight.

It’s a little more expensive than the average price (20€ for two people, drinks included), but the dough is as crispy as a good toasted bread. Wooow ! I recommend you!



In Turin, at noon, many brasseries offer menus at 9€ with pasta as a starter, and a very consistent main course.
You can’t ask for a carafe of water, thisn’tion doesn’t exist, you absolutely have to order still (or sparkling) water. Sometimes water is included in the menu.

Egyptian Museum – Museo Egizio

In frond of the museum, it is marked that it is the largest museum in Italy. It is 10:30 am and there is a long queue in front of us, but the wait finally lasts only 10 minutes, because they let in about 30 people at a time. It is the second largest museum, for the importance of its collections of ancient Egypt, after the one in Cairo.

The entrance ticket costs 15€/person, with the audio guide in French included. By the way, here too the person at the ticket office speaks to us in impeccable French.

There are 4 floors in all and you follow the arrows to go from one room to another. It is very well indicated and the audio guide is very interesting. There are about 40 commented points (you have to enter the number displayed on a sticker in the shape of a cat, and not the number of the sticker in the shape of an earphone, very important!!), each explanation lasts 3 to 4 minutes.

What is interesting here vs. the Louvre, for example, is to see the entirety of the objects present in a tomb that has not been desecrated by tomb robbers.

What’s a bit sad is that all this has been brought back to Europe. The statues put side by side in a museum room would have been even more beautiful if they were kept on site, where they are actually intended.

Here are a few photos, among the 30,000 objects in the museum.

There is a lot of fun stuff in the museum’s souvenir store. I’m leaving with a children’s book in Italian, it will allow me to acquire a little more Italian vocabulary, and review what we visited at the museum today.

Shopping

Besides the museum is a very interesting store. They sell the carabiners that I bought for the round-the-world trip, the S-Biner, to block the opening of the carabiner and prevent a thief from taking advantage of a convenient time to open the bag (I mentioned it here)

I discover that they also have the Doohickey model, which is a screwdriver, bottle opener, ruler, key ring and mini cutter. If you are interested in this kind of objects, you can find them around the corner, in front of Library International Luxemburg Sas di Antonio Pittarelli

We also go to the pharmacy to buy Marvis toothpastes. I fell in love with these luxury toothpastes created more than 50 years ago from Florence. They have a bit of alum stone powder in them, allowing to whiten teeth without damaging the enamel, the fresh but not aggressive taste is very pleasant. They were very appreciated by smokers looking to whiten their teeth. Now they are 7 different tastes (jasmine, liquorice, cinnamon…), but the one I prefer is the Whitening Mint. And we had to go to several pharmacies to find it (it’s a bestseller). As it is an Italian brand, it costs half as much as in France (between 6€ and 7€ per 85ml). Each tube lasts an eternity because they are very concentrated.

Eataly

Next door is Eataly, a luxury supermarket, selling specialties from the region. There are also two (or three?) restaurants attached to this place. Wifi is free, enjoy it!

One chooses to sit in the basement restaurant, in the middle of the spaghetti and pesto shelves.

JB tries their famous spritz, a kind of sparkling white wine (in orange on the picture). Well, he didn’t like the bitter taste

Others

We are in the city center so everything is very cute. There are a lot of galleries, a lot of buildings with dozens of columns…

Small streets too nice. There isn’t much traffic, I don’t know if it’s August or it’s always like this.

We drool in front of stores, restaurants… everything looks too good.

This is one of the best ice creams in the city (apparently). The salesman also speaks a bit of French (and he even knows how to count in Vietnamese), but he was very nice, he spoke Italian with me, slowly so that I could understand. The ice cream is divine, I recommend you!

As we visit very touristy corners and places in the city center, our attempt to speak Italian fails. From the first word, JB is corrected and they start speaking French with him. With my Asian face, they answer me rather in English.

However, they understand everything we say to them in Italian, that’s cool. The only times I was able to exchange 100% in Italian were at the supermarket, at the pharmacy and at Sephora (the girl wanted to create a loyalty card for me, youhouuuu => I’m almost Italian), very short and simple conversations, but I’m glad I understood

Part 2: Practical Tips

Budget

• Flixbus : Chamonix => Turin 13€/person
• Airbnb : 44€/night
• Egyptian Museum: 15€/person
• Restaurants: we have only been in restaurants a little expensive => dish between 10€ and 15€.
• At Eataly, there is a menu: main course + water at 10€ from Monday to Friday
• In all the restaurants where we have been, the cuperto is automatically charged (cutlery + bread between 1€ and 2€/person)

Tips

• Check with your telephone operator for roaming in the European Union. We couldn’t get 4G, but we have 3G internet
• Many locations prefer cash payment. Consider withdrawing some money.
• Even if you don’t feel unsafe, there are many beggars (and maybe thieves?) Stay alert.

The continuation of our trip to Turin is here

Turin (Italy): Visit of the Juventus Museum – part 2