FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX: Turin

View of Piazza Castello from our room

It was time to start our journey across the north of Italy. First stop Torino. Davide picked us up for our nearly 2 hour drive to Turin. We arrived at our accommodation at Piazza Castello just when the car entry restrictions eased, dumped our bags and headed off to explore the city. First order of the day was to buy the Torina & Piedmonte Card, the second task was to maximise the value of the card that we had just purchased which covered entry to most of the major museums and attractions in Turin as well as public transport. The children were pumped.

The Egyptian Museum in Turin is considered to house one of the most important collections on everything Egypt outside of Cairo. With a reputation like that, how could we not go?! After having visited Greece with the British housing a chunk of the Parthenon, it felt almost wrong to be seeing all these ancient Egyptian artefacts outside of Egypt. We have to admit though, that the museum was well done. It was also a lot bigger than we had anticipated. We had to have a brief afternoon rest back at our hotel before tackling museum #2.

Quick pasta lunch at the closest place we found open. Angry and deadpan expressions are the done thing apparently when their mother wants to take a photo...

Enjoying everything nutella. Coffee with nutella

Beautiful covered walkways

Egyptian Museum

Very clever interactive displays

Click and flip!

Book of the dead, with many spells

Very intricate writings

One of our favourite spells

Reminds me of my haircut when I was a child...

Our spacious room

Complete with massive bathroom also with Piazza views. Let's hope they can't see us...

Portico full of luxury stores Via Roma

Hello my friend!

Our next stop was the Palazzo Reale, the Palace or residence of the Savoys. High on the list was the Royal Armory. We were treated to intricately ornate rooms along the way marvelling at art, the chandeliers and the opulence. The armory itself was fascinating, managing to engage the children's interest along the whole length of the room with its phenomenal collection of weaponry.

An Albany blog would not be complete without a mention of a Chinese meal. And so we fulfilled our obligation by entering a Chinese eatery because our Australian stomachs could not handle waiting until Italian eating time. The Chinese owners did not speak English and our Italian was not good enough and so we had to converse in Mandarin. Go me and my primary school mandarin! My father would have been proud.

We ended the day trying bicerin, a drink famous in Turin consisting of espresso, chocolate and milk. We were too cheap and tired to go to the original store and settled for the cafe just below our hotel. Our verdict, it was ok. But not so good that we'd the extra for it! It was essentially a mocha with a fancy name. What we did discover though, was the concept of gelato mixed with alcohol! Forget the spiders with ice-cream and soft drink...hello gelato with moscato! Ours was a trio of cream, hazelnut and stracciatella (sort of like choc-chip, or the viennetta) topped with whipped cream and drowned in moscato. Delicious!