Episode 52: Moments in Turin - Caffe’s & Coffee Bars…. Italy Travel Share
Welcome to Episode #52:
Come with me on a journey to Turin, we will board the Italo service at 10.35 at Milano Centrale and arrive an hour later at the Porta Nuova in the beautiful and the elegant Torino in Piemonte. Travel days are such great experiments, where occasionally the spontaneous finds you, willing and open.
The regal beauty of Turin in the region of Piemonte is quite the marriage of old world Europe and a modern Italian city with opulent piazzas that seamlessly unfold from one colonnaded street to the next.
A walk from Porta Nuova Torino Station over to the Caffe Al Bicerin for its wonderful ambience and the finest chocolate, espresso and cream (fior di latte) hot drink in a glass I have ever tasted. I love a beverage that has been around for nearly two hundred and sixty years. The word 'Bicerin' translates to 'small glass' and is something you can sample all over Turin, but the original recipe was born in the Piazza della Consolata at a small chocolate shop, nowadays known as Caffe Al Bicerin.
Caffe Al Bicerin - 1763Shownotes:
See You in the Piazza by Frances Mayes (audio on the train trip - Region to read…Piemonte)
Train - Italo Service Milano Centrale to - Torino Porta Nuova Station
Ernest Hemingway books mentioned… A Farewell to Arms, Across the River, Into the Trees
Caffes: Caffe Al Bicerin and Gelateria Pepino….Later I had coffee with Eugene but the truth is I did not catch the name but it was on Via Monte di Pieta
Brasserie Lipp ( Paris )
The Great Good Place & Celebrating the Third Place by Ray Oldenberg (detail I mention about the third place and the world of Cafes….)
Cesare Pavese Quote at the end……This Business of Living - A Diary 1935-1950, 28th July
Reading right now: Hemingway in Italy by Richard Owen
Turin - a wonderful city to navigate on foot, bike or by tram
In the Centro Storico where I had one of those classic travel moments where the merging of place and people lift the ordinary to the extraordinary, always in Italy it is the people you meet along the way....
Bonet for dessert, not quite how I expected it to taste, more pudding like than creme caramel style I anticipated. This classic Piemonte dish needs no introduction, it is classic Turin on a plate….
The beauty of Gelateria Pepino and the small ice cream cart. Dating back to 1884 this old world Cafe still sells its famous ‘penguino’ ice cream...They were the first to coat an ice cream in chocolate and freeze it with a stick....Music Composed by Richard Johnston
For me though, no gelato but a sample of the vermouth of the region with their classic ‘Negroni Storico’ beverage with the Storico Vermouth di Torino Cocchi...perfect Torino, I cannot wait to see do it all over again...
Torino, Italy Moments….