From Asti to Turin

After Cinque Terra G and I caught the train to Asti.  This is a little town in the Piedmont region.   We made our way on foot for the relatively short distance between the train station and our hotel.  We were staying at Locanda al Castello.  Aside from the breakfasts (which consisted of cereal and dry bread and jam) and the restaurant (which never seemed to be open) this was an excellent hotel. We had a room that included a kitchenette (meaning we could cater for our own breakfasts) and a lovely little outdoor terrace with a table.  It was all extremely reasonably priced, too, at 70 euros per night.  

 

We arrived on the Easter Monday at around 4 pm and as we made our way from the train station to the hotel, we saw that everything appeared to be shut.  There were a few locals out in the squares, smoking cigarettes and chatting, but the shops and restaurants showed no signs of life.  We arrived at the hotel, absolutely starving, and asked where we might get dinner.  The hotel receptionist simply told us that we probably wouldn't; it's easter Monday and everything is closed.  Could the hotel restaurant provide us with any food, we begged, only to be told that no, the hotel restaurant was shut.  In fact, during our stay of three nights we never saw it open.

So we wandered back into the city, determinedly walking street by street to find something open.

Finally we stumbled upon a little takeaway pizzeria.  The shop looked like the Italian version of the English late-night kebab shop.  Behind the counter was a large woman, with bleached blonde hair and dark black roots. There were two customers in there already - two 16-year-old girls wearing an excess of lycra clothing which, in both cases, had various strategically placed cut out parts, designed to show off their tattoos.  Think a Beyonce costume, but worn on an ordinary person.  Through the cutout portions on the leggings and tight tops oozed some ample white flesh (which actually rather resembled the pizza dough the woman was kneading). 

There was a small menu with names of various pizzas but no descriptions.  So our limited knowledge of Italian (pomodoro, salame etc) was no good to us.  The woman also spoke no English.  We stood there puzzling over the menu when another customer walked in. He spotted our predicament, and in almost-perfect English asked if we needed help with the translations. He then described the pizzas to us.  One of the pizzas he described was the "fonze" which he said, was a "pizza with tomato, some cheese and potato".  This, we decided, was what we would order.  G and I both had pictures of finely chopped potato spread over a crispy pizza base, maybe with some rosemary sprinkled on the top.  We should have realised from our surrounds this wouldn't be the case. 

The pizza started out well - we saw the woman kneading the dough, spreading tomato paste on it but then to our horror, she produced an enormous bag of soggy, pre-made and frozen chips and proceeded to dump the contents of the bag on the pizza before shoving the pizza in the oven.  So that was our first night's dinner. A chip pizza. We took it back to the hotel and ate it on the terrace, carefully picking the soggy (and still cold in the middle) chips from our pizza. 

Thankfully, that was our only culinary disaster.  The next day the shops and restaurants were open and we quickly managed to replace the taste of soggy chips with more delicious things. The reason G had chosen Asti as a place to visit (he largely organised this holiday) is because it is in a region famous for its food, and it didn't disappoint.  We ate some absolutely delicious meals of pasta, fresh fish and (in G's case) meat.  We also had some wonderful wine, the highlight of which was a 2000 barolo by Varja (which only cost us 40 euros at a restaurant).  I tried to keep up my jogging, running around the town every morning.  And in the main the locals were all incredibly friendly.  Rather than being distracted or amused by my fluorescent pink running gear, cars would stop and let me pass and the morning walkers would all say hello.   It is not a hugely popular tourist town, so in the main people were pleased to have tourists there and were terribly accommodating, trying their best to help us out even when they couldn't speak English and we can't speak Italian.  And those who did know some English in the main were keen to practise it on us, which we were very happy with.  

Asti is also a town that celebrates apperitivo time.  This is from about 5 pm in the afternoon where, if you order a drink, you get free snacks.  Lots of free, delicious snacks. 

On one day we also took a day trip from Asti to visit the nearby town of  Acqui terme.  This is an absolutely gorgeous town named after the thermal water that flows into its centre.  The water (which, by the way, smells rather like rotten eggs) is at 74 degrees at the centre of town.  The locals were turning up with their mugs and were drinking it.  We didn't partake in the drinking of the eggy water.  

There are also some terrific Roman ruins of an old aquaduct and ancient baths in Acqui Terme and we wandered around and had a great day.  

 

Then it was time for us to head off again on the train, this time to Turin.