YDYtravelers: Accidental and on purpose day drinking, dodging human hordes at the Egyptian Museum and the loudest park in the world

I started the day with a bit of alcohol, which was very unusual, almost unheard of for me. At the cafe this morning I decided to try a little of the spiked bicerin with my breakfast pastry. It was good and left me with a relaxed sensibility on our way to stop one of our day. Torino has the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts outside of Egypt, and they are all housed in the appropriately called Egyptian Musuem. That was our destination after breakfast. We were able to get there pretty early (before 11) because the three of us learned from the out-of-stock pastries yesterday that breakfast must begin at sunrise (well not sunrise - more like 9AM, but it felt like sunrise for some of us). When we arrived at the musuem, we stood in a short line to get in and then, judging by the ground floor crowds, decided to head to the top floor and work our way down. Crowd management, folks. Except our plans were foiled when we got to the top and learned that we’re not so clever. Many large tour groups and other stragglers were already up there, beating us at our own game. Too crowded was our sad determination of the museum so we planned to leave. But before we departed, all of us agreed to try the first floor where the mummies were. Imagine our surprise to find almost no one there. I think folks either started on top or on bottom, and in between was exactly the right place for us to be. Museuming saved, we had an excellent time touring, but there was the knowledge in the back of my mind that soon, very soon, the hordes would arrive, either from the top or the bottom - or worse yet - both. There was no time for lollygagging, and so mummies were viewed, odd pictures were taken, and then we ran for the cafe, another hiding place from fellow tourists.

We settled in to get more coffee into Mom (she really doesn’t run well without it) and George and I picked out Fanta. Mmmm European Fanta. So good. Right next to the Fanta was another orange drink that I’d never seen before called Crodino. I picked that up as well to try it out. The server poured it into a whisky glass, which made my pretty sure I had just purchased liquor at 11:30 AM. Sure enough, when I drank it, it tasted very much like alcohol, and until I looked the drink up just now to write about it, I thought I’d been day drinking. Turns out Crodino is a non-alcoholic aperitif. So all of the tipsiness I felt early on in my day was from breakfast, where all tipsiness should originate, in my opinion. Fanta, Crodino and Macchiato. The Egyptian Museum’s finest.

After a quick finish-up in Egypt, our plan was to head over the the Natural Sciences Musuem, about 5 blocks away. The walk was pleasant and we saw sights. Google said the musuem opened at 10. And the guide map provided by the friendly folks at the Torino Tourist Info Center listed it under museums that we could get into with our passes. So, imagine our surprise when the place was very, very closed, like hasn’t been open in months (years?) closed. That was not good news, especially because both Mom and George were needing a rest. Good thing we found a park across the street. There was a very entertaining dog playing fetch with gusto, which was as close to natural history (well, not history, but the dog did seem pretty natural) that we got for the day. Next, we needed to Uber back to the apartment to drop George off and also sit on couches for enough time to recover from our odd morning. Guess what? Almost all of Italy doesn’t have Uber, including Torino. Luck was on our side, though, because there was a hospital in our general vicinity that had a taxi stand. Problems solved for the day, we got home, rested our cares away, and then came up with a new plan for the back half of our day.

George opted to stay home (which was a good choice at the time and also in retrospect) and Mom and I jumped in another taxi, easily found at a stand by the Piazza Castello, and went to find the Borgo Medieval Village and Castle. This place is sort of strange. It’s old, but not Medieval old. It was built in 1884 for the Italian General Exhibition and remains an attraction to this day. Our cab driver dropped us off in front of Parco Valentino, within which the village is located. But what we saw when we exited was a huge sign inviting us to OCTOBERFEST. German drinking music (is that a genre?) was playing and folks were getting rowdy. We could have opted for more day drinking, but instead, we pushed through the crowds and down a hill to our destination. Our next loud, weird obstacle came in the form of an announcer for what we think was the half-marathon happening in the city today. He was counting down - tre, due, uno! - and then something we couldn’t see would happen and he’d comment. In between whatever was going on, the guy graciously played death metal for the peaceful park goers at a volume that I’m pretty sure is illegal in most countries. I remember looking at a map of Parco Valentino before leaving on our so far pretty lousy excursion, and it seemed so tranquil, with fountains and riverfront views. Not so. The noise fest diminished a bit when we did finally find the fake but still old village. I gotta say, though, Torino is the loudest city in the world. Everyone must be deaf by age 40.

Medieval village was quaint and charming and we enjoyed the shops and the sights. After a bit of touring, we settled in for some river watching and cheese sampling at the local Medieval cafe. This was the tranquility we were so desperate to find, and it was good. We lingered for a long time, and then waited some more when our server forgot to bring us the bill, so by the time we were done, it was close to 4:30. Just across the way there was a ticket booth for something but since we’d been touring the village most of the afternoon, we couldn’t figure out what we may need tickets for. So, as you do in a foreign country where no one speaks your language, we just picked up some tickets and let the employees lead us to our next adventure. Turns out we were hustled up a pretty steep hill, encouraged by the woman that the top to keep going, don’t stop for pictures, get on up that hill. As soon as we were at the top, she shut a barricade behind us and we began a tour of the fake Medieval castle, presented in Italian. It was actually the best tour I’d had the misfortune of being part of this whole trip. For a tour hater, I appreciated the succinct explanations of the castle rooms and the relatively small group of people. Still don’t know much about the castle though on account of the Italian language part. It’s hard, because I can read Italian relatively well, can speak enough to get by, but listening to it being spoken is tricky. Pretty quickly after the accidental tour, Mom and I decided to leave. Then I remembered that no Uber was coming to our rescue. We figured there’d be a taxi stand at OKTOBERFEST, so we climbed the hill, past the death metal music guy, who was now hosting a skateboarding competition, and to the top, where the very loud, very old-timey German music was playing. And pretty quickly we found that taxi stand. With one empty taxi and no one around. I fiddled with some apps and tried looking up the best ways to get a taxi in Torino until I finally resorted to calling a company. The dispatcher spoke no English, but I was up for the challenge and managed to describe where we were in the park. Pronto taxi was on its way. Prego!

We arrived home pretty wiped out and nearly deaf. Many restaurants are closed on Sundays we’ve discovered, so George and I walked across the street to the Chinese restaurant. The menu was odd but I was thankful that there were English descriptions of the food. Previously, I’d been checking out the menu online, and it was in Italian only. Trying to decipher Chinese food descriptions in Italian hurt my brain. I wound up eating deep fried artichoke and grilled tofu. It was meh. But I didn’t care, because it was quiet in our part of town and peaceful in our apartment. We’re all getting pretty exhausted and I think we’ll be ready to head home on Thursday.