Christmas Vacation - Part 1 - Italy

Dan and I arrived in Torino (aka Turin) within a few minutes of each other. He was held up a bit having to go through immigration but we met at the baggage claim and got our show on the road. We checked in at Townhouse 70 which was a really cute boutique hotel chain with a great, central location, and went out and about.

Considering Star Wars Episode 7 was released while Dan was flying to Istanbul, we decided to try to find a movie theatre. We succeeded in locating one... but, it was closed. They had advertisements for the movie posted all over the place but the doors were locked. Perplexed, we circled the block looking for another entrance. We came upon a quaint little restaurant so decided to go in for a quick bite and a glass of wine. We sat down and were quickly told that they were closing as lunch service had finished, but they had a table at 8pm if we wanted to come back for dinner. Sure, why not?

Circled the block a few more rounds and noticed more people congregating around the entrance. Apparently, they must open just a few minutes before the first showing. We went in and waited in line. We had a discussion regarding whether or not the film would be in English. Dan said that he didn't think it was possible that the film had already been dubbed in foreign languages, so, at worst, it should be in English with Italian subtitles. This seemed logical to me but I requested that he inquire with the ticket sales counter to make sure it was in English. He did not. And it was not. haha.

When the plot started rolling up the screen and it said "Il Risveglio della Forza", he must have been relieved that I don't possess Vader's choke hold skills. But, the way he laughed at me and knowing how much he loves Star Wars, I couldn't leave. So we stayed and tried to comprehend as much of the film in Italian as we could. Dan "gathered" much more than I did but I got the general gist... or at least enough that I wasn't worried about any spoilers that could be posted on the internet. We went home to rest up and wandered back that way for dinner.

Back in our hole in the wall restaurant, we had our own private room surrounded by Italian wine on all the walls. The place was called Ristorante Enoteca Parlapa, and we had 3 courses each, with wine, and left about 4 hours later. No I'm not kidding. We sat down at 8 and as we were finishing our coffee, Dan said holy shit it's midnight. The food was good, not great, but the experience was quintessentially Italian.

See that table in the back room (on the left side of the photo)? 

Yeah, that was our table. Photo credit: here

The next day was Sunday, so we slept in and wandered around a bit. Walked toward their famous landmark, Mole Antonelliana (which is actual the Museum of National Cinema). It was cordoned off by police as apparently there was a bomb scare. Luckily, it turned out to be a false alarm, but we didn't stick around to find out. To the left is one of the few photos I was able to get of the top of the Mole Antonelliana.

Around 6pm, we wandered to an aperitif place under a colonnade surrounding a plaza. The plaza had a stage with a gospel choir singing Christmas carols so we sat outside and listened and people watched. We found a sushi place called One Apple for dinner, propped Dan's phone up against a glass and watched football in the corner upstairs while we ate.(hooray, Slingbox!)

Monday morning we boarded the train to Switzerland for 5 days in Geneva and Zurich. I promise I won't break every city into a separate post. This one was just particularly eventful with our movie go-ing and crazy dinner experience, so it was getting a bit lengthy. :)