2022_09/10 France – Page 2 – Lynn's Travel Adventures

Leonardo da Vinci

Today was an absolutely lovely day. Weatherwise, it started off cold (low 40s) then climbed to the upper 60s. Our only planned activity was to visit Chateau du Clos Luce, a manor home behind the Chateau d’Amboise we visited yesterday. This is the home where the great painter, architect, civil engineer and inventor, Leonardo di Vinci, spent the last 3 years of his life.

Leonardo’s bedroom. This is the bed in which he died on May 2, 1519. When he died, the painting hanging at the head of his bed was his portrait of Madonna Elisa Gherardini, wife of the Marquis of Giocondonone. This painting is more commonly known as the Mona Lisa. It now hangs in the Louvre in Paris.

These are the rooms he used as his workshop. Here are some of the pics.

This cabinet contains the tools he used in his work.

Leonardo brought these two paintings, along with the Mona Lisa, with him to the Manor House.

These are both reproductions; the originals hang in the Louvre.

One of the many beautiful tapestries found in the manor house.

Leonardo designed many things that were ahead of his time, including the parachute, tank, machine gun, automobile and plane. Here’s a picture of his model for the tank.

It was on wheels and guns stuck out of all sides.

Here was his idea of an airplane.

One of the rooms contained a hologram video. It was in French, so we don’t know what it was about, but it was still pretty cool.

After visiting the house, we walked around the expansive garden. By this time the temp was up and it was gorgeous out.

One of the outbuildings had a large room with information about his scientific studies, cities he helped design and his inventions. Of course, Peter read every word on every plaque which is when I took the opportunity to upload pictures to the blog.

Have you ever seen the Immersive van Gogh exhibit? I’ve seen it twice and it was amazing. Anyway, they had a much shorter version of that about Leonardo’s work. It was very good. Here’s a small snippet.

At the far end of the garden, we found a building that was a 16th century inn.

After spending at least an hour roaming the garden, we headed back to the car for the 5-minute drive to the city center. Here we walked along the Loire River, enjoying the beautiful day.

Chateau d’Amboise from the ground. It was super easy to find our car as we parked just below the Chateau. Look for the Chateau…there’s our car.

We wandered the pedestrian street until we came to a creperie where, of course, we had to stop for a snack.

Peters was coconut ice cream with bananas, chocolate sauce and coconut flakes.

Mine was just as yummy with vanilla ice cream, pears, chocolate sauce and almonds.

Once home, we enjoyed wine in the garden.

We ate cold, leftover pizza for dinner and played a few rousing rounds of Rummikub before getting settled for the night.

We thoroughly enjoyed our 2 days here and loved meeting our host Martine. What a delightful woman. When she found out we had dirty laundry, not only did she volunteer her washer, but she insisted on doing it herself. I was perfectly happy to run the load myself, but she told us to leave, and she would do it for us. Above and beyond the call of a B&B hostess.

The house is veritable menagerie with 5 chickens, 5 cats, 2 ducks 3 rabbits, 2 hedgehogs and a dog. Only a couple of cats and the dog were inside the house, and they never bothered us, but it was wonderful to hear her talk about her pets.

The dog in one of his costumes. In addition to running the B&B, Martine has a costume business. She has over 1500 costumes that she rents. Apparently, the dog loves to get dressed up.

As much fun as we had here, we’re looking forward to our next stop….Lascaux Caves where we’ll see reproductions of the Neanderthal cave paintings. It will be fun.

Loire Valley

We started our day in Orleans (Or-Lee-O with the accent on the last syllable). After stumbling into a park and ride, we took the tram about 5 stops to the Cathedral. You would think that after over 2 months of visiting dozens of cathedrals, basilicas and churches we would be numb to them but no. They are so beautiful you can’t help but be awe-struck. This one was no different.

Basilique Cathédrale Sainte-Croix d’Orléans

I think these were Stations of the Cross. There were several panels.

And, of course, the Chapel of St. Joan of Arc.

On our way from the Cathedral to the main town square, we passed the Hotel Groslot, a 16th century building that was originally a Town Hall. We didn’t get to go in, but it’s a cool looking building.

After just a few minutes, we arrived at the Place du Martrol, the main town square of Orleans.

Of course, there’s a large statue of Joan of Arc in the square.

Then it was on to our final destination, Amboise, in the Loire (Low-R) Valley. The main reason to come here was to see the Chateau Royal d’Amboise, the former residence of Kings of France. Before the Chateau, there had been a fort on this spot since the Roman times. The Chateau originally was built by the powerful Amboise family before being confiscated by the Crown in 1434.

There weren’t that many rooms open to the public but the few that we saw were very nice.

King Francis I of France invited Leonardo di Vince to be court painter. Leonardo lived at the manor house Clos Luce adjacent to the Chateau Amboise until his death in 1519. He is buried in the Chapel which, unfortunately, is closed for renovation until later next year. While we didn’t get to see his gravesite, there is a bust of him in the garden. Tomorrow (Friday) we’re visiting Clos Luce.

Since we couldn’t check into our B&B until 5pm and it was still only a little after 3pm when we finished at the Chateau, we wandered the streets of this cute little town for a while. I found a store that sold linens and picked up some beautiful handmade cloths for our bedroom furniture. It was one of the few things on my must-buy list for this trip.

Cute pedestrian shopping street in Amboise.

Cool looking old house across the street from the Chateau, which by the way, is right in the middle of town.

Before coming to the house, we drove across the river to get pictures of the front of the Chateau. Since there was no way to do that from the Chateau itself, we luckily found a place to park to get some beautiful pics.

The Chateau sits directly above the town

We’re staying at a B&B tonight and our host, Martine, is delightful. Our suite is lovely, but the internet connection is atrocious. It has taken almost 4 hours to write this post as the pictures are taking FOREVER to upload. So, I’m going to close for tonight. Tomorrow I’ll take pictures with my phone rather than my camera so I can upload them to the blog from the phone while on 4G. It will be much faster than trying to upload from my computer on the house WiFi. So frustrating. Night everyone.

Drive Day

Not too much to report today as it was a 6-hour drive day. We left our new friends in Rheinau this morning heading back into France. After driving for almost 2 1/2 hours, we stopped at the St. Mihiel American Cemetery and Memorial. It’s dedicated to dead and missing from WWI. It was much larger than other WWI cemeteries we’ve been to, and like all of them, was very beautiful and peaceful.

From the cemetery it was a short, 15-minute drive to Montsec Monument, commemorating the Battle of St. Mihiel in September 1918, a victory for the Allied forces. In spite of achieving their objectives, the cost in lives was very high. Many of the men buried in the cemetery were killed in that battle.

Peter didn’t climb the stairs, so I stayed up there only long enough to grab a few pics. The view was beautiful.

We had our lunch looking out over the beautiful French countryside.

Then it was back in the car for the more than a 3-hour drive to next lodging. It’s a beautiful house that we could easily live in, if we wanted to live in the middle of nowhere…which we don’t. But we’re only 90 minutes from our first stop tomorrow….Orleans.

Driving Through the Black Forest

A more accurate title for today’s post would be eating our way through the Black Forest. First, why is it called the Black Forest? Well, when the Romans invaded the area, they noticed that the forest was very dense which made the green trees look black. So, there’s your trivia for the day. Just how have we lived without knowing that??

Just like yesterday (Monday), the day started very foggy and cold, only in the mid-40s. We started off for Baden Baden, about 45 minutes away from our flat. By the time we arrived the fog had burned off and, while still chilly, the sun was shining.

We stopped for coffee and hot chocolate but when we went into the café, we found some delicious looking ice cream creations. Since we didn’t want the chef to feel bad, we decided to try a couple.

Peters on the right was a vanilla ice cream sandwich on chocolate chip cookies. Mine on the left was vanilla ice cream topped with berry sorbet, coated in chocolate, nuts and some cool eatable decorations on top.

There was nothing special we wanted to do in town, so we just walked around for a while looking at some of the beautiful buildings.

We didn’t make it up to the church (pink steeple)….too many stairs to climb the hill.

The Bath and Spa. Baden Baden is the Bath of Germany. For many years people have traveled here to “take the waters.”

Giant statue of Otto von Bismarck. He was responsible for the reunification of Germany in the 19th century.

Spital Church, the only remaining building from the medieval hospital.

The Calvary Group is a monument from the late 15th century depicting Jesus and the sleeping apostles in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before Jesus’ crucifixion.

There was no plaque on the fountain telling us its significance but we thought it looked cool.

After about an hour in Baden Baden, we headed out through the Black Forest to Hornisgrinde, which at 3818 feet, is the highest mountain in the Northern Black Forest.

There was a small lake with a path, which meant we could have walked around the lake….we didn’t. There were also paddleboats, but we didn’t do that either.

Even though we brought our sandwiches, we decided to save them for dinner and had lunch in the restaurant. Peter had bratwurst and I had what I thought was a tart. Turned out it was a giant flat bread.

My flatbread had tomatoes, onions, mushrooms and cheese. Apparently it’s a local dish. While not what I expected, it was very good.

Our plan was to have Black Forest Cherry Cake for dessert (I told you we ate our way through the area) but we were both full so we brought a piece home with us.

After a very leisurely lunch (service was incredibly slow) we headed back through the forest. Our ultimate destination was a winery that our host told us about, but on the way we passed so many adorable little towns and beautiful vistas. Most times there was no place to take pictures but we did stop in one of the villages for a few minutes. Here are some shots of Ottenhofen.

Almost every village had a little stream running through it.

At the Oberkirch Winery, we tasted several wines. Peter wasn’t crazy about any of the dry whites, but did pick up a small bottle of Rose. I loved 2 out of the 3 sweet wines I tried, so now I have 3 bottles of wine in the car. That should last me the next couple of weeks until we fly to Amsterdam.

Then it was another 30 minutes home where we sat on the front patio chatting with Stephan, our host. What a delightful person! He’s a local police officer, one of 5 in a town of over 12,000 people. He said they’re spread pretty thin, especially when the French cross the border (only about 5 minutes away) and start causing trouble. He also told us that the house we’re living in was built in 1770….how cool is that!

While we were visiting, we broke into the Black Forest Cherry Cake, and yes, it was as good as it looks.

The cherries and sponges are soaked in Kirsch, a cherry brandy.

Tomorrow, we’re back in France. It’s primarily a driving day as we head west towards the Bordeaux region. It will take about 4 days, though, and we’re excited about seeing some cool things along the way.

4 Countries in 3 Days

If you count Switzerland, which was only a drive thru, we’ve been in 4 countries in 3 days…Italy, Switzerland, France and now Germany. Today started cloudy and very foggy but ended up beautiful, sunny, and warm.

We spent several hours in Strasbourg, France, a town that Peter has been wanting to see. I was here for an afternoon almost 30 years ago but didn’t remember anything. It’s very much like Colmar, a fairy tale town, with half-timbered buildings and a river running down the middle. But, this one had a Cathedral. Since it’s been 3 whole days since we’ve visited a Cathedral, of course, we had to stop in.

The Cathedral of our Lady of Strasbourg, the #1 tourist attraction in the city, broke ground in 1015 and was completed in 1439. Unlike most Cathedrals in Europe, it has only one tower instead of two.

Like all the others, the inside was remarkable. My favorite part was the rose window in the nave; the colors were gorgeous.

This was just a few of the many beautiful windows, 73 of which were removed during WWII and stored in a nearby salt mine.

This was another of my favorites. I love the circular windows above the arched ones.

Of course there was a grand organ.

Originally built in 1260 and rebuilt many times over the next 450 years.

The Astronomical Clock is one of the Cathedral’s most famous features.

The carved pillar was also unique.

After leaving the Cathedral, we enjoyed some music in the square. These musicians were wonderful, I could have listened to them for hours.

Then we walked to Petite France, the city’s lively tourist hub, known for cobblestone streets, canals, and well-preserved half-timbered homes. On our way, we stopped for a mid-morning snack of eclairs.

Peter’s was chocolate and mine was berry.

It was filled with blueberry…oh, so good.

And a few minutes later…

In addition to sweet eclairs, they had savory including salmon. A salmon eclair!?! That’s just wrong on so many levels.

We finally made it to Petite France and it was very reminiscent of Little Venice in Colmar.

It didn’t matter, though, as it was so pretty. We really enjoyed the view.

Then we saw the covered bridges from a distance. It was a bit too far to walk.

The tower in the background is one of two at the bridge.

Since we had seen everything we wanted to see, we headed back to the car, stopping first for a baguette to bring home and a sandwich to share. We ate on a bench on the Ill River. By this time the sun was out and the temp had warmed up considerably.

We were only about 25 minutes from our new Airbnb flat in Rheinau, Germany, just about 10 minutes over the border with France. We’re staying in a lovely ground floor flat in an old farmhouse. Our hosts, Stephan and Ruth, live upstairs. When we arrive, Ruth greeted me like a long lost relative with a big hug.

There’s a gorgeous garden and, once we were settled, we enjoyed a glass or two of wine while sitting in the sun.

Tomorrow we’re going to drive through the Black Forest on a circuitous route Stephan suggested. There’s even a great spot for some Black Forest Cherry cake. I can’t wait!

Colmar, France

After 3 lovely days in Italy, we’re back in France. The drive yesterday (Saturday) wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The weather was cloudy and drizzly, but the ride was an easy one and the countryside was beautiful, even in with the clouds.

Here’s a short video Peter took out the front window. It wouldn’t embed so, if you want to see it, you’ll have to click the link. Don’t know why that happens but luckily it doesn’t happen to often.

https://youtu.be/BAw7Afq9AKI

There were a lot of tunnels to get through the mountains, the longest of which was over 10 miles long. It was only one lane in each direction as the northbound tunnel was shut down. So, two lanes of traffic in each direction went down to one lane to get into the tunnel. The back up on our side was only about 5 minutes long, but the one on the southbound side was about 5-6 miles long!! It was going to take them hours to get to the tunnel. Once we got in it moved at a steady pace but the merge to one lane each way was cumbersome. We felt pretty bad for those drivers knowing how long that traffic jam was.

Beautiful Swiss Alps from the rest stop.

After about 2 1/2 hours of driving we stopped for a break and petrol. We wandered around the giant rest stop for a little while looking for yummy things to eat. Here’s a sample of Swiss pastries. We bought some Swiss chocolate instead…very good.

Once back in the car, we were just over an hour away from Colmar. It’s in the Alsace region of France which has bounced between France and Germany throughout the years. The German influence is very evident in the food and the buildings. Most people here speak both languages, but not much English. We’re managing with sign language, pointing, and google translator.

Statue at the entrance to the town of Colmar.

You might be wondering why there is a Statue of Liberty at the entrance to the town. Well…Colmar is the home town of August Bartholdi, the Father of the Statue of Liberty. This is one of several replicas throughout Europe.

Other than the birthplace of Bartholdi, Colmar is most known for it’s well-preserved old town and the half-timbered buildings. Yesterday we took the Petite Train through the city which gave us an overview of the tourist part of town and an idea of the things we wanted to visit today. Here are the highlights of our wanderings. As you can tell, it was cloudy both days but, luckily, we didn’t have much rain.

The Unterlinden Museum used to house a 13th century convent but is now the most visited arts museum in France, outside of Paris.

We only covered one floor of the museum as the other floor had archeological artifacts and we’ve seen enough of that to last awhile. The salons we saw contained mostly religious art.

Isenheim Altarpiece c. 1512-1516. It is stunning.

This is one of the other altarpieces. In all there were 5 of them.

This painting was from the mid-16th century.

There were so many beautiful buildings in town, it was hard to decide which ones to include but there are a few that are notable.

The House of Heads was built in 1609 and got its name from the 111 heads that decorate the façade of the house.

The beige house on the right is one of the oldest in town, dating from about 1450.

To the immediate left of that house is this one, built in 1575 and originally used as a guard house.

Don’t think there’s anything too special about this house; we just thought it looked cool.

There are several churches in town but we only visited this one.

Close up of the beautiful roof tiles of the church.

Large clock on the outside of the church.

Of course I have to include at least one stained glass window.

We visited Little Venice, one of the most photographed areas in Colmar. There is a small boat ride down the river but since we’ve been on a gondola ride in the real Venice, we passed on this ride.

Here’s the exact same shot but without our big heads blocking the view. This is the most photographed spot in Colmar. It was so pretty, even with the clouds.

Statue of the Little Winemaker. This was also done by Bartholdi.

Part of the covered market. It turns out that grocery stores are closed on Sunday so in retrospect, we should have picked something up for dinner here.

Pfister House was built in 1537. Here’s the entire building.

And here’s just the top part without all the tourists.

In addition to walking around and looking at the very cool buildings, we had some wonderful local Alsatian cuisine.

The first two pictures are Saturday’s late lunch. Both mine (top) and Peter’s (bottom) were Cordon Bleu but with veal rather than chicken. Mine had a rich mushroom sauce while Peter’s was smothered in cheese. The Alsatian pasta was actually spaetzle, a German pasta. This was very different from the Cordon Bleu we had in Paris which was cooked in the traditional French way.

Today we had a little snack mid-morning.

Peter had ice cream and I had a crepe suzette. There was so much brandy on it that I wouldn’t have been able to drive for an hour after eating it.

Then for lunch today, Peter had a burger and I had what was basically a broiled ham and cheese sandwich but, oh, it was delicious.

Colmar is on the Alsace Wine Route which is France’s oldest wine route. It spans about 100 miles north to south along the region. We only visited a couple of them on Saturday but driving to them through the picturesque villages was a lot of fun. The wines are more of a sweet variety which I love. Peter, not so much. He didn’t even get out of the car for the 2nd one. I bought a couple bottles of lovely sweet Gewurztraminer (impossible to pronounce correctly) wines that I get to enjoy all by myself.

There are vineyards everywhere you look.

The only shops open today were the tourist shops and, while we only went into a couple, we really enjoyed the Christmas shop.

Peter in one of the 5-6 rooms of the store. It was great fun wandering around the rooms but it was almost sensory overload as there were so many ornaments and other Christmas decorations.

Even with the cloudy, cool, rainy weather, we thoroughly enjoyed our short stay in Colmar. It is well worth a visit if you ever get to this part of France. Tomorrow we head about 40 minutes northwest of here to Strasbourg where we’ll spend the next couple of days. The weather is supposed to clear up a little so maybe we’ll see the sun.

Duomo d’Milano

Before getting into today’s adventure, here’s a clip from last night (Thursday) I took from our back balcony. This is what we love about staying in Airbnb flats versus hotels. We were in a regular neighborhood, listening to the local kids playing. It totally flashed me back to when I lived in Sicily 30 years ago as I used to watch the kids play in our courtyard. Of course those kids are now approaching 40 years old, but…

We had a very short drive today, only about 90 minutes, but it rained all the way. Not terribly hard, just enough to have the wipers on. As I didn’t want to drive into Milano and deal with trying to park the car in the city, we found a park and ride. It was at the end of one of the metro lines and, once on the train, we were at the Duomo in less than 20 minutes. Perfect.

The official name of the Duomo (Italian for Cathedral) is The Metropolitan Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. That’s quite the mouthful so it’s no surprise everyone just calls it the Duomo. It is the largest church in Italy, 2nd largest (after St. Peter’s in the Vatican) on the Italian peninsula, and 3rd largest in the world after St. Peter’s and Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady Aparecida in Brasil.

Construction began in 1387, was consecrated in 1418 but took 600 years to complete, with the final touches being done in 1963. There are more statues on this gothic-style cathedral than any other building in the world. There are 3,400 statues, 135 gargoyles and 700 figures, and that’s just on the outside. There are hundreds more on the inside.

It was heavily damaged in WW2. Luckily the incredible stained glass windows had been removed so those were saved.

A close up of one of the panels from the main door

The last time we were in Milano in 2016, we didn’t go inside because the line was crazy long and it was crazy hot outside. Seeing the inside was the main reason we came back this year. Because of our handicap placard, we didn’t have to wait in line and we didn’t have to pay. I’m so glad we came back because the inside of this remarkable building really takes your breath away. The carvings and windows are beyond belief. You almost don’t know where to look first. Here are just a few of the many pictures we took.

Windows and statues above the main door.

Long view from the Nave to the front of the Duomo.

Two of the enormous windows behind the main altar.

Closeup of one of the hundreds of carvings in the Duomo.

There is an archeological museum in the basement of the Duomo, but there were too many stairs and there was no handrail so it wasn’t safe enough for us to go down. Instead we went to the Duomo Museum, which was phenomenal. It contained many of the original windows, carvings and spires that are too old to expose to the elements. There were also original tapestries, chalices, and molds used to make the components of the Duomo. I took about a zillion pictures but here are some we (Peter helped pick them out) think are representative of what we saw.

This is the Pax of Pius IV. It’s made from gold, lapis-lazuli, agates, diamonds, rubies, garnets, and wood. It was made sometime between 1559-1565.

Chalice made from gold, rubies, pearls, sapphires, rock crystal and glass. This was made the end of the 15th century.

Some of the original early 15th century spires.

This is a wood carving of the Madonna and Child, circa 1425-1450.

There was an entire room of stained glass windows. Unlike the ones inside the Duomo, I was able to get up close to these. The workmanship was incredible.

There were quite a few tapestries as well. This one was our favorite.

This is an original mold for one of the wall panels. The detail was unbelievable.

I could go on and on, but I won’t. I think you get the idea that both the Duomo and Museum were well worth the trip.

Here’s a short video of the Piazza from the front of the Duomo.

Then it was time for lunch. We wanted to eat at the restaurant we visited in 2016 that specialized in Risotto, but we couldn’t find it. If it hadn’t been raining (just drizzle but enough to get wet), I would have left Peter on a bench and looked a little harder for it, but I didn’t want to drag him through the streets without even knowing if the place was still open. So, we ate at a restaurant just behind the Duomo. They had outside seating under a large canopy and heaters so we were perfectly comfortable.

We started with bruschetta. Those cherry tomatoes were hard to control. Even cut in half they kept rolling off the bread.

Today we switched it up. Peter had pizza and I had Risotto alla Milanese.

This was so creamy and delicious. I will have to find a recipe and try it at home.

Our last stop of the day was the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II which is on one side of the Piazza Duomo. Factoid: Every city in Italy has dozens of things named Vittorio Emanuele II. Why you ask? He was the first king of the unified Italy.

Anyhoo….the galleria is 4 stories and is meant to look like a covered pedestrian street. It was built between 1865 and 1877 and is Italy’s oldest active shopping mall.

One of the mosaics on the floor is of a bull.

The Milan Bull. Notice the indentation between the bull’s back legs.

Legend has it that spinning 3 times on your heel in this exact spot will bring good luck. Well, Peter needs all the good luck he can get right now so it gave it a whirl.

OK, so he only made it around once but some good luck is better than none.

Here are some yummy looking pastries we found a few steps from the bull.

If Milano is on your bucket list, there are many more things to see/do than we did today. We spent 4 days here in 2016 and didn’t feel the need to repeat those adventures. But if you come be sure to…

Say hello to Leonardo. This is in the piazza just outside of LaScala.

Go to the refectory of Santa Maria della Grazie to see DaVince’s masterpiece The Last Supper. This is the hottest ticket in town so be sure to buy a ticket in advance.

Visit Sforza Castle. The Sforza family were rivals of the di’Medici family.

Then, of course, there’s the shopping. Milan is the fashion capital of Europe so there are more than a few shops for you to browse. Depending on what you like to do, you could easily spend several days enjoying Italy’s 2nd largest city.

Tomorrow we have a long drive (about 5 1/2 hours) through northern Italy and Switzerland to Colmar, France. I looked at places to stop along the way but we’ve already been to Lugano and there wasn’t much to see/do in Bern or Basel, so we’re going to power through to Colmar. Besides, weather is still rainy and we’re driving through the Alps, so I’d rather get it over with before snow starts.

Hopefully we’ll get to Colmar in time to actually enjoy some of the city before checking into our flat. It will be sad to leave Italy but we’ll be back next year. Buona notte cari amici.

Beautiful Day in Torino

It turned out to be a very nice day. Rain is still forecasted but not until much later this evening.

We started the day at the Egyptian Museum just a few minutes walk from Gelato Pepino.

Statue of Isis. The ancient Egyptians worshiped cats.

The color on the tiles was amazing considering how old they are.

The museum has one of the world’s most significant papyrus collections. with nearly 700 whole or reassembled manuscripts and over 17,000 papyrus fragments. The one below is one small section of a very long death story.

The picture on the top right: The person who died wants to be reincarnated as a falcon and the cow with the double ostrich plume is the heavenly goddess of creation. These were so cool and in remarkable condition.

In the early 20th century, an Italian archeologist went on an Egyptian dig to look for more artifacts. Here’s one of the cameras he used to document their work.

How would you like to drag this around on vacation.

Funeral figures found in many of the graves.

After finishing at the museum, we walked about 10 minutes back to Piazza Castello and headed to the Royal Palace. I know I said we wouldn’t be going to another palace, castle, chateau or church for a while but that was before we decided to come to Italy. So…here’s the next palace.

The Royal Palace of Torino was the home of the Savoy family who ruled much of Italy for many years. In case you didn’t know, Italy was only unified as a country in 1861. Prior to that, it was made up of kingdoms ruled by the most powerful house in the kingdom. One of the most famous is the di’Medici family in Florence. The House of Savoy ruled the Piedmont (far northwest) and Sardinia areas. Upon unification, the country was ruled by a King until it became a republic after the war.

Peter with an elephant in front of the Royal Palace.

Six years ago there was a statue of a bull in this exact spot.

Sept 30, 2016…almost exactly 6 years to the day. He had a few extra pounds on him back then.

The front of the palace was covered in scaffolding so there wasn’t much to take a picture of but here’s a shot from the garden.

One of the wings of the palace from the garden.

The palace was originally built in mid-16th century and modernized about a century later.

The armory was modeled after Versailles outside of Paris.

In one of the rooms, a restorer was doing work on the wall panels. It was pretty cool to watch her work.

The Shroud of Turin has been housed in the Royal Chapel since the mid-15th century. Once believed to be the shroud used to wrap Jesus after the crucifixion, carbon dating in 1988 shows the cloth is from the Middle Ages.

The image on the right is the product of digital filters being added to the image.

The Holy Shroud is kept in this box on the High Altar. It’s only taken out on certain occasions.

The chapel dome was amazing.

Next we planned to visit the Cathedral but by the time we got down there it was 1230 which is when the building closed for riposo. In Italy virtually everything, except bars and restaurants, shuts down for from about 1-3pm and sometimes even longer. The Cathedral wasn’t opening again until 4pm so this is the only photo we were able to get.

The Cathedral of St. John the Baptist is in the front and the dome of the Royal Chapel is in the background.

So instead of visiting the Cathedral, we headed around the corner to Pizzium for lunch. According to TripAdvisor, it has the best pizza in Torino. Northern Italy is not known for pasta or pizza, but lunch was pretty good.

And the lasagna?? This was pesto lasagna and while Peter likes his with Bolognese better, he said it was still very good.

I could tell Peter was getting tired, so after lunch we headed back to the tram. We got home early but that gave me a chance to do a quick load of laundry. There’s no dryer but the sun is on the balcony so, hopefully, everything will dry before it rains later this evening.

We enjoyed our short time in Torino but 1 1/2 days is plenty. We were only here for a half day in 2018 but we were able to walk a little farther than we did this time. Here are a couple of other pictures from that trip.

One cool building in Torino is the Mole Antonelliana, which for a time, was the tallest masonry building in the world. It now houses the Museum of Cinema. We didn’t get that far this year but saw it in 2016. It’s in the middle of the block and is so tall that it’s almost impossible to get it in a picture. Here’s one I found on pixabay.

Beautiful sunset picture of Torino showing how much taller Mole Antonelliana is than the rest of the city. The Italian Alps are in the background.

Tomorrow we head about 90 minutes east to Milano. We spent 4 days there in 2016 but since that was the way we had to go to get to our next stop in France (weird to have to drive east to end up north but there are only so many ways through the mountains), so we decided to spend the day. We saw the Milan Cathedral from the outside in 2016, but never made it inside. We hope to do that tomorrow so be ready for more pictures of stained glass windows. Fair Warning!

Back in Our Beloved Italy

But before I get into that, have you seen what’s happened to the UK Pound?? It’s totally tanked, dropping to less than 1:1 against the dollar. OMG! Can we go back and redo the first 8 weeks of this trip. We’d save about $2000-$3000. When I was in the UK in 2002, it was 2:1 pound to dollar. Oh, how times have changed.

We had an uneventful drive from Mougins to Torino (if you don’t count all the construction slow downs), veering from the beautiful Mediterranean coast into the foot of the Italian Alps. We arrived in Torino early afternoon and got into our flat without difficulty. Then it was a 30-minute tram ride into the city center. We’re a little farther out than I like to be but we have a very nice, large flat with free parking and it’s right around the corner from the tram so I guess it evens out.

Have no idea what this building is but it looks very stately.

Dead dude on a horse in the same piazza.

We were hungry as we skipped lunch but by this time it was just after 4pm which means no restaurants are open. In most of Italy, restaurants will be open for lunch until about 3pm then close until dinner at 7-8pm. So we knew we couldn’t get real food but thought we might get an adult beverage and a snack. Well, we found Gelato Pepino. Founded in 1884, it’s one of the longest lived ice cream parlors, not just in Italy but in all of Europe.

My drink was a frozen margarita with lemon ice cream and Peter’s was a mimosa with orange ice cream. They were so good. Yes, I had massive order envy when I saw Peter’s snack. My fruit pie was very good, but his gelato was seriously delicious. We may have to go back tomorrow.

Italy isn’t known for its pastries but these looked pretty good

After our snack it was a quick stop at the grocery store then back to the tram for the ride home.

Palazzo Carignagno; this was in the same piazza as Gelato Pepino.

Everything here is so familiar….the dirty streets, the graffiti, the cigarette smoke….it’s just like every other city in Italy. We love it!! Ok, I could do without the cigarette smoke but it’s great to be back. I was able to go into the Tobacco shop to buy our tram tickets and understand what the clerk said back to me. My Italian is on the level of a 2nd grader, but I can make myself understood, which is more than I can do in French.

Tomorrow we’ll go back to city center to see what kind of trouble we can get into. Hopefully the rain will hold off. Night everyone.

Driving the Coast

Today was a very low key day. We slept late, had a lovely breakfast, then headed to the town of Frejus, about 40 minutes west of here. Frejus Beach is one of the places the Americans landed on Aug 15, 1944. So, of course, we had to visit and Peter had to get in the surf. Except it was a little cloudy, a little cooler and the wind was gusting like crazy, up to 30 MPH. So, he decided walking on the beach was enough.

We also saw the monument to the men who died in the 1st Indochina War from 1946-1954.

We took a short stroll down the boardwalk, trying to stay upright in the gusting wind. Once back at the car, we decided to drive the coast back to Cannes and it was a gorgeous drive. The clouds had cleared so it was a beautiful sunny day.

The road was filled with switchbacks and there weren’t many places to stop, but we found a few.

It took twice as long to get home as it would have if we’d taken the freeway but we had nothing special to do here and it was well worth the extra time.

Today’s pastry picture. We didn’t have any of these but they sure look delicious.

We’ve had a change to our itinerary. Originally, we were leaving tomorrow and heading west to catch the southwestern part of France and Andorra before heading up with western coast. Well, Peter has decided that he wants to go the other way instead. So, tomorrow we leave for Turino Italy where we’ll spend two nights. We were there in 2016 but only for an afternoon and Peter doesn’t even remember being there. So, this time we’ll take a little more time to explore the city. It will also give us a chance to practice our Italian, which is much better than our French, which of course, is practically non-existent.

We’re only about 30 miles from the Italian border and it’s pretty much straight freeway so it should be a pretty easy drive; at least I hope so. I’ll let you know.