Today's weather might not have had four seasons, but it certainly was extreme. At one stage, it was fairly hot (and humid); the next minute, there was a thunderstorm with hail. More about this later....
Instead of going into the town centre, today we 'turned right' and walked the short distance to Parco Valentino, a very big park which runs along the west bank of the River Po. We had seen some of this park on Sunday when we rode on the hop on/off bus, but then the park was crowded with the last day of the annual automobile show. We decided to return to the park when it would be less crowded.
At first, we walked down a tree lined path that was next to the road, which was very pleasant. We later turned into an area called 'the rocky garden', which is like a park within a park. Whereas the main park was mainly left to itself, one could see that the rocky garden had been paid a great deal of attention. The relationship between this area and the main park is something like that of Golders Hill park and Hampstead Heath (or at least, how it was 40 years ago). The two lamp-posts are an example of the sights visible in this section of the park.
Eventually we reached the area of the 'Fountain of the Months' (follow the link to see good pictures). In real life, the statues look a bit more tired than they do on that web site. Also, the fountain itself wasn't working.
At this point we turned back, but instead of following the path upon which we had come, we followed a path which ran along the bank of the Po. Just as well we did this, as shortly we came upon 'The medieval village' which is a realistic replica of a 15th century Piedmontese village built in the early 1800s. Just as we got there and I began to film the streets inside the village, bangs were heard in the sky ... and a thunderstorm began, complete with hail. I took refuge under an arch, which sheltered me from the worst parts of the storm. Again, the picture to the right looks more 'alive' than the real thing, whose colours are somewhat more drab. The rain didn't help.
Eventually the rain stopped, allowing us (and the six other people who were sheltering) to continue our stroll along the riverbank promenade. Finally we came to the end of the park, near enough where we had begun. By this time, we were fairly tired and hungry; fortunately there was a small cafe just across the road from where we were. A pasta al pomodora along with a cup of te calda were exactly what we needed to restore our spirits. Thinking about it now, the tomato sauce here was much tastier than the spaghetti which we had in Pisa and Lucca.
As we are going home tomorrow and as Torino is the town of chocolate, of course we had to buy some chocolates for people back home. There is an exclusive old-style chocolate shop on the corner of 'the main road' and 'our street', so we chose it for our purchases. In the window were some special chocolates: keys, locks and wrenches (the photo to the left isn't very clear), along with tea pots, cups and even cutlery, all made out of chocolate. We bought a selection of items. For ourselves, my wife has a bag of hazelnut chocolates, purchased after tasting a few when we had tea yesterday afternoon in a fancy cafe; I have my mint chocolate.
I am reminded of the taxi driver who took us from Pisa airport to our hotel in Pisa, when he asked about our plans. "Why Torino?", he asked in a questioning voice, as if no one goes there. We can know tell him that there are plenty of things to do in Torino and that we very much enjoyed our stay. I had prepared a few day trips to outlying villages but we didn't need these, finding enough to do in the city. Some might say that we could have done more with our time; I would reply that we are on holiday, which means that drinking a relaxing cup of tea in a cafe by the side of a piazza, watching the people walk by, is just as important as walking around an art gallery.
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