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Torino After we left for the airport while still in Pittsburgh, I realized that we were arriving a day earlier than the tour was to begin. Lorraine looked at the itinerary and saw that the first hotel was “out in the country”, and so instead of waiting around 24 hours in the countryside (which we were going to see plenty of during the giro), I made train and hotel reservations on the internet in the Chicago airport. Interestingly enough, I did it on the italian website that we studied just the day before in Italian III class at Pitt. When we got into Milan, I called Pasquale (one of the italian friends I speak to on SKYPE – Gregorio’s cousin) on his cell phone. He agreed to meet us at the train station. He helped us find the hotel, but given that didn’t give him any sort of notice, he was not able to have dinner with us that night. It was nice however meeting him in person, and getting a little bit of the “lowdown” on Torino before we headed out to explore on our own. Torino was beautiful as most “major cities” are in Italy, with architecture that just “doesn’t quit”, a beautiful river running through the outskirts of the city, and many “chic” stores to shop till we drop – which we did. I picked up a bunch of italian children’s books for my own continued development in learning the language, and for Ronin. We then had our first “post 8pm dinner” in a really nice restaurant not far from the river. Click on the link above to see pics from the "Arriving Day". |