Torino, day 2

After breakfast at a nearby cafe (included with the room, but not wonderful), we walked to the metro and took it to the end of the line where we walked to the Automotive Museum.  The metro is pretty fabulous -- well marked, clean and with frequent trains.

Next, walking around and going to an really fantastic sandwich shop off of the Piazza Madama.  I had an egg/potato/green beans/artichoke sandwich -- delicious.  I might have to steal that recipe.  Anyway, from here it was back to our B+B to eat and rest for a while.  Our mission to the car museum proved to be a bit exhausting for all of it, but worth it.

We walked around a little more, stopping at the fantastic gelato place called Piu' Di Un Gelato, where they were de-stemming huge buckets of strawberries.  I ordered the hazelniut, which was fantastic, but the strawberry that both Alex and Zoe ordered was out of this world

Next:  back to the B+B again to relax and wait for the next opportunity to eat (dinner).  In the mean time I watched the Giro post game show

For dinner, we decided to go for seafood, despite being in the Piemont.: had developed a mysterious and insatiable desire for grigliatti mista.  And so we found ourselves at Il Giglio, and it did not disappoint

TORINO

It's been hard to stay on top of all the three and four day weekend in May.  We have mostly ended up ding last minute (but fun!) things.  This weekend was the exception, and we had planned it out several months in advance.  The idea was to go to Annot with some other families from the gym, and spend the weekend bouldering with the kids.  Unfortunately, the weather was uncooperative and we had to cancel.  That's just the way it goes in France in Spring -- you have to be ready to change your plans if you want to do things outside.  Anyway, not only was it going to rain almost everywhere, but it was going to be COLD!  So we were faced with weather based last minute planning.  Monetier was out, since it would be cold *and* rainy.  The South was probably completely booked.  So then I had an idea:  Turin!  I sent out around ten emails and one place in the center of town responded that they had a vacancy.  I looked around tripadvisor and discovered quite a few interesting places to see -- more than enough for a weekend at least -- and booked the B+B for thursday and friday night.  We left early enough that there was not too much traffic, except at the entrance to the Frejus tunnel, where people were exhibiting the typical French lack of queuing discipline.  Eventually we made it through the tunnel, and with only a couple of wrong turns found where to park without paying (on the advice of the B+B owner).  From there it was a quick walk to the B+B where we met the lively and super friendly owner, and were shown to our lovely room

and got a peek at her place as well

Next: FOOD!  We went to a really nice place called Pastis a few blocks aways and in typical fashion ordered too much food:

The kids ate most of my fried and breaded ham and cheese cutlet.  No, I am not bitter.

Next:  a trip to the hot air balloon to look around the city.  This unfortunately involved taking a walk through a kind of grotty area.  My pro tip:  Corsa Regina Margherita is a good Northern limit to your explorations.  Anyway, the hot air bvalloon was kid of cool, but waaaay overpriced at 20 euros.

From there, we headed towards all the Piazza that I had seen in the photos.  This involved traversing the Piazza della Repubblica, which was awash in trash (literally, since the street sweepers were cleaning up by hosing the trash around with water cannons) and then past the Parco archeologico.  The latter sounds nice, but actually it was filled with a pretty rough crowd, including people taking turns helping eachother shooting up.  Rough.  But then things got a lot nicer as we entered the Piazza San Giovanni and then went through the delightful passage which opens up into the impressive Piazetta Reala.

The kids were starting to flag, so it was Gelati-recharge time

Which bought us some more time to walk around and see the Piazza San Carlo via the opulent marble sidewalks under the arcades.

We stopped at a suitably delicious looking cafe

And then peeked into the Congregazione Dell'Oratorio Di San Filippo Neri

We walked through the narrow passage next to the Egyptian museum

But by this point the kids were in meltdown mode, so it was a direct shot (or the most direct that we could manage anyway) back to the B+B

A quick scan of Tripadvisor again identified a nearby restaurant called Il Ristoro Dei Mercanti.  It was a lovely meal, with Piemontese specialties.  Our waiter was incredibly nice to the kids.  They really make it a lot easier to bring kids to restaurants in Italy!  Little things like bringing out the kids food early make a big difference in the survivability of a meal for parents (and fellow diners).  

At the end of the meal, our waiter asked me if I would like to try a special alcohol, but that it was "Only for hard men-- are you sure?"  I was in fact not sure, but what the hell.

I guess it was grappa mixed with mint.  Not bad, but I probably will not search out more.  Next up:  sleep!  Unfortunately, we were awoken at 5 in the morning by a sea of joggers in matching red shirts filling the street below and chattering like birds.  Finally, one of them yelled "ANDIAMO?!"  And the sea lurched forward.

MSM

 First time under 30 mins this year. woo.

Chloe BACK!!

Charmant Som

It felt very difficult, but I got my best time for the last part (Porte to the Som).  One of those days when I almost turned around three or four times.  So beautiful up there.

Picked up one of my bottles of Gevrey-Chambertin from Franck on the way down (thanks Franck!!)

Shopping with Z

Modified Haku

Sewn by Atelier Henri Canin.  Rocks. The. Casbah.

Alex visits the new family member!!

Paris, the final day

First stop: Musee de la Chasse et de la Nature in the Marais.  I had read about this in a recent NY Times article sent to me by my mom, and coincidentally Ali and Micah have a friend (A museum specialist!) who also recommended it.

It was pretty fantastic and I highly recommend it to anyone in Paris with kids.  There are small desks with drawers containing hoofprints of the animals, little binocular viewers of movies of the animals, and of course a drawer with poo from the animal -- nice.

In one room the guard (nicest guards ever by the way) asked me if it was ok to activate something, because it sometimes scared kids.  Zoe said yes, and soon one of the wild boar's heads mounted on the wall was muttering and roaring -- it's tusked jaws opening and closing with the noise. -- Chuck-E-Cheese's long lost boar brother I guess.

Next stop was probably the best Fallafel I have ever tasted at l'As du Fallafel.  Sooo good.  We ate them at the nearby park.  There was some attrition of the fallafel balls, which was exciting for the pigeons.

Next, we walked to the Luxembourg gardens by way of a really nice jam/confiture store called La Chambre aux Confitures (I bought some fig jam and Zoe bought a sparkly spoon) and then past the comically thronged Notre Dame.  Micah showed me how the city bike share system works there -- very slick.  I totally would be using those all of the time if I lived in Paris.

Zoe was again running out of steam by this point, but we refueled with glaces and then Zoe did some swinging, followed by merry-go-rounding.  They have the charming "extra" of giving the kids little lances with which to try to grab little metal rings.  I had read about it in Paris to the Moon, but never seen it, as it is not available in the Provinces.  Zoe got the hang of it pretty fast, and I found myself cheering for her when she grabbed one, and averting my eyes sadly when she missed.

Then it was back to the apartment for a quick meal and then off to the train station where we finally met up with Glen for about ten minutes before we jumped onto the train.  Soon enough we were in Lyon, where I thought there was a problem with the train because it started moving at a snail's pace.  I later found out that the tracks cannot accommodate high speed travel, so it takes a friggin hour to get to Grenoble from LYS.  When we finally arrived, I was amazed to see that there were no taxis in the taxi stand.  If one actually wanted to work, I would think that a clever driver might look up the schedule of arriving trains, and time his or her arrival at the taxi stand accordingly.  No such luck though -- there were at least twenty of us waiting, and no taxis.  They slowly trickled in, during which time I was furiously trying to download the Uber app, only to find out that it is not yet in Grenoble.  Now I see why everyone loves Uber and other services like it!  Our turn eventually came, and the driver tried to get off an exit to early, but I managed to catch that little trick.  We stumbled into the door a few minutes later, quickly got ready for bed and passed out.  It was a wonderful trip, and so generous of Micah, Ali and Zeke to welcome us.