Chocolates, Museums, and Mountains, Oh My!

Torino is just all around A+. The report card for our weekend there involves an A+ for chocolate, an A+ for scenery, and an A+ for museums. 

We made our way to the mountain-enclosed city of Torino for the CHOCOLATE FESTIVAL that weekend, and it was all we had hoped for. We started off with the famous Bicerin drink, which is a hot chocolate dream. It’s an equal mixture of espresso, hot chocolate (Italian style, the consistency of pudding) and latte. In one piazza, two long rows of tents sold every chocolate item you could want, including chocolate pasta, chocolate crepes, chocolate-covered bananas, chocolate condoms, and a rich chocolate spread. At a few booths, they offered shots of chocolate liquor in chocolate cups. We couldn’t resist.

I also discovered my new favorite chocolate: bite-size, thick, creamy milk chocolate pieces in gold wrappers. I bought a bag to bring home to share with friends and family, but I ended up eating them all myself in a few days. I am a horrible, horrible person.

We also visited the Turin shroud, which was fascinating. You can’t actually see it most of the time in the church (only on the rare occasions when the the pope decides to put it on display for the public) but there’s a detailed x-ray photo. I love relics and reliquaries (and the controversies surrounding them), so it was awesome to be that close to one of the most debated about and treasured relics of the Catholic church. Around sunset (we had perfect timing!) we took a glass elevator to the top of the Mole, an interesting building with a cinema museum inside. We caught the sun setting over an absolutely gorgeous view of the mountains, and played a few intense games of “I Spy”.

The Cinema Museum was also really cool. Most of the films were Italian, so I wasn’t familiar with a lot of them, but the setup of the place was so fun. Each room was like a different movie set: a bar fight at a Western saloon, a 50s household, and a weird surreal area with a refrigerator door and toilets to sit on. We saw Charlie Chaplin’s bowler hat (!!!) and a collection of Star Wars masks too. Lots of stuff was interactive, so we had a good time playing around and watching movie clips.

The next day, we made it to the Egyptian Museum, which is the only gallery exclusively reserved for Egyptian art outside of Cairo. There was a temple transported inside (!!!!), two dramatically-lit rooms full of beautiful scultures, and lots of wrapped and unwrapped mummies. If you love Egyptian stuff (oh hey, Alice!) the museum in Torino is heaven.

Overall, Torino gets very high marks. Possibly one of my favorites so far?