Smelly Pilgrims, Smelly Town
Italian city planners tend not to take any notice of pollution controls, have scant understanding of sewerage, and have a random distribution algorithm to tell them where to put their housing blocks. This last fact is I think the cause of the vast contrasts between streets, and often completely incongruous but adjacent buildings, that one finds in many of Italy's less famous towns.
Aosta, about the size of Cambridge but very different in location, was something of an exception. Nestled in the mountains, not enough of the buildings in the centre had managed to fall down or been bombed in the past century so the council had been forced to build it's concrete monstrousities just outside the city walls. To make up for this obvious disappointment, however, they had built them in abundance. The centre of Aosta itself was delightful though, full of Italian tourists, and one could clearly see why the Pope takes his holidays there.
Turin is a rather different place. The first thing that one notices on arrival, particularly by bike, is that it is vast. Any concept of a green belt certainly hasn't hit the city whose outskirts began (in the form of industrial estates) about 6 kilometres before any semblance of a building older than 40 years was visible.
Without an accurate map, the only indication we had of how close we were to the centre, was the apparent age of the buildings. As predicted, 1970s housing blocks were strewn all over the place, but as we rode further down the Corso Giulio Cesare these gave way to pre-war houses, then to slightly crumbling turn of the century buildings.
Eventually we got to an old Ironwork market, which must have been 1850 or so. This was next to a square where a large number of stalls were just packing up their wares. Thinking we were close to our objective, we asked a few people for the appropriate street and kept being directed down the road to the station. On we went. The station seemed an awfully long way away. Asking again we were told to carry on futher. By now we were passing old Italian city villas, some of which must have been 16th century or earlier.
Eventually we found it. An affordable 3 star hotel which we had booked in Aosta with the intention of having a day off on Sunday. The hotel itself was what one might expect - fairly spacious with talked-up amenities (like the "ice machine on the ground floor" which was actually the receptionist reaching into an ice bucket and putting some ice into a glass). The room itself, and I imagine they are all like this, is rather special though, as it has a very high painted ceiling, an indoor mezzanine unusable balcony with ballustrade (!) and stained glass windows. What's more, the beds were comfy.
In order to get to Torino, it had been necessary to cycle 125 kilometers. This was achievable since the majority of the route was downhill from Aosta and then, once we had got to Ivrea, across the plain to Turin. The Aosta valley is fascinating, dotted every couple of miles with a castle and with vines suspended on pillars surrounding the frequent villages clinging to the very steep hillsides. James and I were at odds over which side was nicer: I preferred Italy, he Switzerland. Either way, the scenery was spectacular.
Quite suddenly and without warning by means of foothills, the steep mountains gave way to an expanse of plains. We lunched at the hill fort town of Ivrea, a high walled city plonked on top of a mound to guard the valley up to the pass. Everything was shut. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen quite such a completely shut city in all my life. Saturday afternoon in August is not Italy's active time.
Nor, it turns out, is Sunday. Turin could be a really lively and interesting place, full of modern shops inside stunning old arched arcades running in some cases for about a kilometer! Architecturally this place is stunning, to the point that one can start to take the perfectly preserved centre for granted. However, as with Aosta, step outside the old centre, into the hub of the modern city, and things change.
The old city is comparatively quite tidy, when put against many cities of the world. The centre of the modern city is the market we passed through last night. This morning, without any stalls and with noone having bothered to wash it down, the whole market square smelt of a rather unpleasant combination of fast food, guerkins, smelly men on buses, and rotting vegetables. There is an excellent bus and tram service here, and this square seems to be the central hub where everyone changes bus: hence I am somewhat bewildered at why the people of Turin actually put up with the hideous stench. Maybe, I conjecture, it is a cunning plan to prevent tourists from clogging up the trams? Or perhaps all people from Turin smell like this and as a result they are immune. I don't know.
Apart from the fact that there isn't anything open which doensn't require standing up for long periods of time (museums etc.) so the location is somewhat dull in substance (owing to it being Sunday), the rest day couldn't have come at a better time. All four of our legs have been complaining today about having to be a tourist, clearly a sign that it was time to stop for a day. Tomorrow, however, we will set off once more, hoping to make Rome in 10 days, on the 18th.
Aosta, about the size of Cambridge but very different in location, was something of an exception. Nestled in the mountains, not enough of the buildings in the centre had managed to fall down or been bombed in the past century so the council had been forced to build it's concrete monstrousities just outside the city walls. To make up for this obvious disappointment, however, they had built them in abundance. The centre of Aosta itself was delightful though, full of Italian tourists, and one could clearly see why the Pope takes his holidays there.
Turin is a rather different place. The first thing that one notices on arrival, particularly by bike, is that it is vast. Any concept of a green belt certainly hasn't hit the city whose outskirts began (in the form of industrial estates) about 6 kilometres before any semblance of a building older than 40 years was visible.
Without an accurate map, the only indication we had of how close we were to the centre, was the apparent age of the buildings. As predicted, 1970s housing blocks were strewn all over the place, but as we rode further down the Corso Giulio Cesare these gave way to pre-war houses, then to slightly crumbling turn of the century buildings.
Eventually we got to an old Ironwork market, which must have been 1850 or so. This was next to a square where a large number of stalls were just packing up their wares. Thinking we were close to our objective, we asked a few people for the appropriate street and kept being directed down the road to the station. On we went. The station seemed an awfully long way away. Asking again we were told to carry on futher. By now we were passing old Italian city villas, some of which must have been 16th century or earlier.
Eventually we found it. An affordable 3 star hotel which we had booked in Aosta with the intention of having a day off on Sunday. The hotel itself was what one might expect - fairly spacious with talked-up amenities (like the "ice machine on the ground floor" which was actually the receptionist reaching into an ice bucket and putting some ice into a glass). The room itself, and I imagine they are all like this, is rather special though, as it has a very high painted ceiling, an indoor mezzanine unusable balcony with ballustrade (!) and stained glass windows. What's more, the beds were comfy.
In order to get to Torino, it had been necessary to cycle 125 kilometers. This was achievable since the majority of the route was downhill from Aosta and then, once we had got to Ivrea, across the plain to Turin. The Aosta valley is fascinating, dotted every couple of miles with a castle and with vines suspended on pillars surrounding the frequent villages clinging to the very steep hillsides. James and I were at odds over which side was nicer: I preferred Italy, he Switzerland. Either way, the scenery was spectacular.
Quite suddenly and without warning by means of foothills, the steep mountains gave way to an expanse of plains. We lunched at the hill fort town of Ivrea, a high walled city plonked on top of a mound to guard the valley up to the pass. Everything was shut. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen quite such a completely shut city in all my life. Saturday afternoon in August is not Italy's active time.
Nor, it turns out, is Sunday. Turin could be a really lively and interesting place, full of modern shops inside stunning old arched arcades running in some cases for about a kilometer! Architecturally this place is stunning, to the point that one can start to take the perfectly preserved centre for granted. However, as with Aosta, step outside the old centre, into the hub of the modern city, and things change.
The old city is comparatively quite tidy, when put against many cities of the world. The centre of the modern city is the market we passed through last night. This morning, without any stalls and with noone having bothered to wash it down, the whole market square smelt of a rather unpleasant combination of fast food, guerkins, smelly men on buses, and rotting vegetables. There is an excellent bus and tram service here, and this square seems to be the central hub where everyone changes bus: hence I am somewhat bewildered at why the people of Turin actually put up with the hideous stench. Maybe, I conjecture, it is a cunning plan to prevent tourists from clogging up the trams? Or perhaps all people from Turin smell like this and as a result they are immune. I don't know.
Apart from the fact that there isn't anything open which doensn't require standing up for long periods of time (museums etc.) so the location is somewhat dull in substance (owing to it being Sunday), the rest day couldn't have come at a better time. All four of our legs have been complaining today about having to be a tourist, clearly a sign that it was time to stop for a day. Tomorrow, however, we will set off once more, hoping to make Rome in 10 days, on the 18th.
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