Torino Torino Torino

The thing about going to Italy that excited me most (as with most places I have to confess) was the FOOD!  I am a Foodie, a Food Lover, A Gastronomic Finder! I am a Taurus and I think with my stomach! This is probably the reason that I battle to stay a size 10! 

The first part of my holiday was the Hubby's business trip to Turin where I was his Plus 1, and we stayed in a rather southern part of the city and this did not excite me until we drove past this place!

Eataly

It might not look like much from the outside but when you walk inside . . . Well I thought I had died and gone to heaven. It is a supermarket, deli, market, food store, restaurant (well about 7 restaurants) and and Italian "Woolies" all rolled into one! And I spent almost a whole day 'window shopping' as I knew that we could not buy anything with 2 weeks of travelling ahead of us.

Just hams

Pasta, Pasta, Pasta

ONLY Parmesan Cheese

A small sidebar here:- The people of Turin do NOT speak much English. They are friendly and try, but international tourism is not like the other cities in Italy and so I did a lot of pointing, grunting and nodding.

After all the food staring and salivating I decided to have lunch - this is where the sidebar comes in handy - the menus were all in Italian, and there were things I just did not know how to translate. There are about 7 restaurant stations within this gastronomic sanctuary and the only non Italian speaker was Spanish!

SO, I did what I thought I would only ever do at a Chinese take away, I ordered a number 3 - I had recognised prosciutto as ham! I was offered wine with more gestures and hand signals which I refused - the look of horror was something I thought I would only ever get from my kids when I tried to kiss them goodbye in public so I took the wine. What a fabulous call! The food and wine both danced on my tongue.

I wondered if I could tie myself to the chair and beg for Gastronomic Asylum!