House of Ravioli

The fast half of the day was all about the views.

We started with an awesome in room breakfast. Just wanted to reiterate how grateful we were for Italian coffee...It was then back to the business of using our tourist card. Turin is well connected with buses, trams and metro. Public transport was easy to use with an app that helped outline options to get from point A to B. We hopped on a bus to the Sassi Superga tramway. The old-fashioned tram would take us up to the Superga Basilica. We had planned to go to the tombs but it was unfortunately not open. A look inside the 18th Basilica and a panoramic view of the city of Turin below would have to suffice. As the tram only left once per hour, we had to run to make the tram back down to the city. The driver was kind enough to wait for us! Grazie!

Breakfast delivered to our room

Waiting for the tram to open

The first and only people on the tram at 10am lol

Basilica Superga at the top

I'm still trying to get a normal pose out of these three

Sweeping views of Turin

Next stop - Mole Antonelliana, the iconic symbol of Turin. We had to school ourselves on what a Mole was. No it was not a pigmented skin dot, a unit of measurement nor the animal. A mole in Italian is a building of monumental proportions. Thank you google and wikipaedia. Originally designed to be a synagogue, it now houses the tallest museum in the world, the Museum of Cinema. As a side note, the Torino + Piedmonte card did not include the Panoramic Lift (discount only) which would take you up to the viewing terrace but did include entry into the Museum of Cinema. With lines still short, we zoomed up the shaftless elevator to more views of Turin before tackling the museum. The first half of the museum was more interesting than the second, with interactive displays going into the science of optics. The second half was mostly in Italian featuring films, actors, directors and so forth, so perhaps much was lost in translation. 

Lunch was at the nearby House of Ravioli, rated as the highlight food stop so far by the children. Big call! Jonah was lamenting that eating ravioli at home now would just be depressing knowing how good it was here. The dramatics!! The place was obviously popular with the young uni students and we were lucky to get a table immediately. Cheers to the habit of having our meals early!

Molle Antonelliana

Elevator with no shaft going up the centre of the building!

More spectacular views from the top

Start of the exhibits in the National Museum of Cinema

Not short on interactive displays

Science of optics

Many interesting displays

They've got Mal

The expansive interior

Comfy loungers to watch the film displays

DIY special effects

House of Ravioli

The hit "sauce of the season" - butter and bacon

Every single plate was CLEAN at the end of the meal

Home made cheesecake

Bun fight is on. Guess it was good

Another very good home made dessert. Classic tiramisu

We had to leave space for more gelato and moscato!

The manager of our accommodation probably misinterpreted Malcolm's description of "nothing fancy" when providing us with a dinner recommendation. She was kind enough to ring up and make the booking so it would've been too awkward to try and change the booking when we later Googled Solferino and discovered that it described itself as being frequented by "medium-high level customers and famous in their field: politicians, institutional offices, actors, football players, artists."

Malcolm went for a walk and bought a shirt with a collar. We all put on the best clothes that we brought then we all tried to wipe off as much dirt as we could from our sneakers/hiking shoes.

The service was way better than the food... at least to our tastes. The flavours were full of hours of reduction and earth, but in the end it just seemed to make the meaty dishes just taste more...meaty. We also over ordered - we are yet to get a solid feel for the sizes of appetizers, primi and secondi at Italian restaurants and what the "done thing" is in regards to sharing appetizers or primis. Until we get a solid feel we are just becoming...solid. Hopefully a few days of skiing will undo it all and make room for Disney!

Veal carpaccio. Collars on!

"Baked" fish but came out surprisingly crispy