The view from the balcony towards the piazza. There's a building opposite, and a pedestrian island in the middle with trees. People are crossing the roads, walking along or milling about. The sky is blue.

Italy trip: to Turin

Caity
Orange sunrise through the gap in an open window.
This morning’s sunrise through the gap in the window
by Caity

Today, we got up with the sun and took the train to Cambridge, where we had coffee in a place that is too fancy for cup handles while we waited for the rail-replacement bus to Stansted airport.

Two cups of coffee in cups without handles on a metal tray. The photo is taken from directly above the cups. A sip has been taken from each cup. One coffee has latte art.
Cambridge is too fancy for cup handles
by Caity

This trip is the long-awaited holiday in Italy before Colin’s work meet-up in the hills of northern Italy.

The bus ride was smooth enough, and we were deposited at the airport in one piece.

At the airport, we got through security without any problems. The flight was fine, and getting through passport control on the other side was surprisingly quick. We found a shuttle bus from the airport into Turin proper, buying a ticket from a machine. The lady at the desk next to the machine told us where to go to get the bus. Next, we had to find a bus to take us from the bus station to the apartment we’ll be calling home for a few days.

Google Maps told us all about the bus we needed to get and from where. Easy enough. When the bus came very early, the driver didn’t speak English, and we don’t speak Italian, but I know some Spanish, which is vaguely similar in some ways.

I said to the driver the name of the stop we wanted to get off at in a questioning tone to check it was the right bus.

The driver talked a lot in Italian, and pointed elsewhere.

We were confused. Was he telling us to get a different bus?

Another man on the bus said some more Italian, including the word fermata. That sounded like the Spanish for ‘closed’ to me, so that didn’t help. Turned out it meant ‘stop’, as in ‘bus stop’. We worked out he was telling us ‘nine stops’. Could he not just have said si ‘yes’?

The yellow bus is the bus we want, we think
by Caity

Once we’d established it was the right bus and that we were to get off at the ninth bus stop, I asked the driver for two tickets. That’s not how buses work in Italy. You don’t buy a ticket from the driver. You use a contactless payment method on a machine in the bus when you get on, but not when you get off – contrary to the London Underground, where you pay on your way in and on your way out. We worried about how much we’d be charged, but it was only €1.90 in the end.

Alighting at the ninth bus stop, we found the apartment building easily enough, and headed upstairs. The keys were in a lock box, which we opened without problem, but getting the door open was a different matter. The front of the keyhole rotated, and you had to have that aligned the right way round to get the key in the lock. Once we’d worked that out, we were in!

It’s a lovely apartment, old-fashioned, but with modern decor, and it’s in a good location for shops and the touristy things.

The living room. A red sofa sits opposite a large television set on a cabinet. On the wall between them is a tall window covered with translucent curtains. In front of the window is a plant on a stand. There is a built-in cupboard inthe corner. In the middle of the room, on a mat, is a small round table.
The living room
A bedroom. There's a tall window with translucent curtains, each tied in the middle. There's a double bed in front of the window, and the floor is tiled.
The bedroom
The main part of the bathroom. There's a sink with a mirror above it, and a shower cubicle next to it on the adjacent wall.
The bathroom (sink and shower)
A long, thin corridor-like part of the bathroom. There's a narrow window at the end, with a cupboard with a plant on below. There's a toilet and a bidet along the wall in front of the cupboard. Continuining along the wall, there's a stool, a washing basket and a cupboard. The floor and walls are tiled in white.
The bathroom (toilet and bidet; very narrow)
The view from the balcony towards the piazza. There's a building opposite, and a pedestrian island in the middle with trees. People are crossing the roads, walking along or milling about. The sky is blue.
The view to the right from the balcony
The view from the balcony along the street. This side has old-fashioned buildings; opposite, the buildings are more modern. Blurred in the distance are the mountains. The sky is blue.
The view to the left from the balcony – look at the mountains!
Our home in Turin
by Caity

This will do nicely.

Wait, there’s more!

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