Vino in Torino

Hazelnut chocolate is a must!

Our two days in Torino as a whole group were so much fun! This was one of my favorite cities in Italy and I would definitely love to go back. It also seems like it would be a great city to study in! When walking down the main streets of Torino you can see rolling green hills on one side and the Alps on the other. It's a comfortable enough size that it seems like I could learn my way around pretty quickly but still have areas to explore, similar to Parma.

View of Torino

The group and I visited the Cinema Museum, which was very interactive and had a bunch of
paraphernalia from various popular movies. We also rode a glass elevator to the top to see a panoramic view of Torino (not recommended for those with claustrophobia or a fear of heights...but two people from our group did still it). Torino also apparently has the third (they claim second) largest Egyptian museum in the world. The ancient artifacts were really interesting; the mummified bodies weren't my favorite (they still had their hair!). We also saw an old palace that now has, among other things, a lot of knights' armor and taxidermied horses.

Medieval Borgo

We took a boat along the Po River, the longest river in Italy, to a

Wine cellar tour

Medieval borgo (borough/castle area) next to a beautiful public park. Water, castle, green spaces: I obviously loved all of this. On Saturday, we made our way to Monforte d'Alba where we went wine tasting at Fontanafredda. I fell asleep on the bus ride and woke up to the most picturesque view of grasslands and flowers near a stream with the Alps as the backdrop. I felt like I was in a fairy tale, like I have for many of my trips around Italy. We tasted Alta Langa, Mirafiore, and Barolo, the latter of which is supposedly one of the best types of wines in Italy. I'm no wine connoisseur, but I thought it was pretty darn good!

Nice "family" in Monforte