Return to Chamonix, via Turin.

We chose Bar Napoleon for its overflowing pastry case. I saw a gentleman choose his own pastry from the case and bring it to the bar, and we copied him. The 11yo chose a croissant labeled nocciola—I really do not understand why the kids love hazelnut so much, I can do completely without the stuff—and I chose one that looked wholesome and grainy and was labeled something like cereali.

We carried them to the bar and I ordered un cappuccino per me, e per lei, una cioccolata calda o qualcosa comme ça, because one problem I have sometimes is that when the Italian pipeline runs dry the French starts to spill out behind it.

No matter. We got our drinks. The barista made the hot chocolate from a packet and with steamed milk, which is fine.

The croissants were good (I didn’t taste hers, but she ate it up; mine contained a sweet filling, sort of like apple or maybe honey).

She didn’t like the hot chocolate. It was bitter, barely sweet, and thick, spoonable, almost like pudding. I suggested she add sugar, people put it in their espresso and there is plenty around, but she wrinkled her nose and we wound up leaving the chocolate behind.

We walked up and down the beach. She had a little money to spend and wanted some souvenirs and gifts from Italy. On the previous days in the later morning there had been sellers of bags, wood carvings, laced tall and narrow drums, all spread out on sheets on the plaza or hanging on temporary stalls (“Good price, good price, come see”); we thought that some of the woven wicker bags might be cool; but it was too early for those sellers. The plaza was still empty.

There are numerous little shops that read as “tourist shops” because they sell things like bobbleheads and refrigerator magnets with your name on them, crossed by plastic palms; but if you look closely they are also selling items that are very functional for an impromptu beach vacation, or for the traveler who has lost or forgotten something important. Sunglasses, and beach mats, and plastic pails and shovels and dump trucks; magazines, even swimsuits, coverups, scarves.

She bought a scarf (I coached her to feel the fabric first, to make sure it at least felt soft and comfortable, ot cheap crepe) and felt satisfied. We went on, and back to a little store I had noticed on our way out: school supplies, office supplies, and stationery.

I love paper and pens, neat little art kits, notebooks. I thought about buying a child’s illustrated Italian-English vocabulary book, the kind with two-page spreads of scenes, and the nouns labeled with both words. But I resisted.

I got a little notebook for the 7yo, who had been wishing for paper ever since he spent some of his own money on a seven-color retractable pen from the gift shop in the Genoa aquarium. The 11yo found a sweet little nylon portfolio with three zip compartments, one with scissors, ruler, pens, pencils, sharpener, and eraser, the other two with colored pencils and markers. I bought it for her and called it a School Supply, so she did not have to spend her own money.

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Back at the apartment, we repacked our clothes, pulled still-damp items off the drying rack and stuffed them into mesh bags, stowed random items in shopping bags, and crammed this luggage among our bodies in the car, which has nearly no cargo space. I was sad to leave the Andora apartment, probably the nicest rental apartment we have ever had.

We aimed for Turin, with a modest goal: to stop in the cathedral there—yes, it is the one where they keep the Shroud, but that was not what we were after, and anyway, it isn’t on display now. We wanted to visit the tomb of Bl. Piergiorgio Frassati. I would have liked to set an additional goal of walking twenty minutes from there (past what would be some cool sights on their own) to the basilica Maria Ausiliatrice, which is the resting place of Sts. John Bosco (my child discipline mentor, also a fan of St. Francis de Sales) and Maria Mazzarello, but I knew that would be too ambitious for the small children, so I only kept it as a vague perhaps-it’ll-work-out thought.

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Our 17yo is rocking the restaurant picks, so we assigned him to pick one on the way for a leisurely lunch. He picked Ristorante “Al Bue Grassi” at the Carrù exit; the place was close to the highway, sharing a building with a coffee bar, and surrounded by agricultural fields. They advertised a “laborer’s menu” for €10 on the sign. Mark sent me in ahead to ask.

“Siamo sette—possiamo pranzare?”

Yes. Yes, we could eat lunch. There was only one table open in the whole place, but it was the big one. Every other table w
as occupied by men, except one with a retirement-age couple next to us.

The menu was a little more complicated than others we’d looked at, with no English. Normally we let everyone choose a dish, but nobody could read the menu but me, so finally I shut everyone down and took over, while Mark was in the bathroom with the 3yo and couldn’t object.

I ordered:

• peperoni bagna cauda (I focused on the peppers a marinade but forgot it was made of anchovies)
• salumi misti
• a pasta course: tagliatelle pomodoro, tagliatelle ragù, gnocchi pomodoro (wish I had gotten the butter and herb sauce instead, as while it was good, I think that would have been perfect), ravioli ragù
• mixed grill (sausage, pork, veal, chicken, beef)
• filet of beef with green peppercorn sauce

Like the trompe-l’oeil on the ceiling?

The children drank a liter each of natural and frizzante mineral water. Mark asked me to order him a glass of Barolo, since we were in the Piedmont; but what we are finding is that most restaurants only have one wine of each color by the quarter-liter and half-liter, though they may have dozens of bottles.

But! One bottle on the long list measured 0.375 L. It was a Barbera, a good runner up to Barolo. Perfect for splitting at lunch time.

For dessert, they had a cart. An eggy amaretto-soaked ring cake, caramelized on the outside. (Mark.) A hazelnut torte with a custardy sauce. (The 11yo, who had not had enough nocciola that morning.) Tiramisu (the 17yo). Panna cotta (my 13yo’s new fave). Gelato, crema and limone in the same bowl, for the two little boys. And prunes simply stewed, then chilled, in sweetened, spiced red wine (me).

My 17yo tried the prunes and pronounced them better than his tiramisu. They were quite good. I will have to make that at home.

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On to Turin, with flat country on our right and mountains on our left.

Driving into the middle of Turin was on the edge of what Mark is comfortable with. He has driven in Rome (never again, ever, for any reason) and Bologna (never again unless he has to), and he says that Turin was not quite as bad as those, only because there were not as many motorcycles and scooters, and we did not drive any narrow streets. He focuses on not hitting things, and I tried to navigate.

I wasn’t sure whether to try it or not, but on researching I figured out there was a big public parking garage right on the edge of the limited-traffic zone, a few minutes’ walk from the cathedral inside it. And the roads that approached the garage were all big major streets. So we decided to try it.

But then we missed a turn (largely because of a confusion between “right” the direction and “right” meaning correct, combined with needing to be on a frontage road instead of a main road to make a certain turn), and Google Maps rerouted us. We crossed the river five or six times, and got glimpses of numerous cool views: the Piazza San Carlo spread out before us, stunningly, at one point, until we turned and it disappeared, and a long road along the river, its walk lined with fat, shady, knobbly trees.

Suddenly not far from the garage we were heading to, Mark spied a street parking spot and grabbed it. We were puzzling over the electronic parking meter when a traffic parking official stopped, rolled down his window, and told us it was free today.

We couldn’t understand why, but we accepted it gladly.

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I did not take any pictures inside the cathedral. It is not a breathtakingly grand building, and I barely glanced at the art inside. We passed quietly to the left until we found the side chapel with a large portrait of Bl. Piergiorgio, and a large informational poster giving his biography (Italian only I think), and a kneeler with a suggested prayer in Italian.

There were candles burning in tiny votive holders, and little cone-shaped candles in a box below with a sign: €0.50. I let the 3yo down from my back and gave him a half-euro coin, and more coins to the other children, and let them put the coins in the slot. The lighter was the pull-the-trigger butane kind, but the 11yo helped the 7yo and I helped the 3yo and it was fine, we lit the candles and not our clothes.

I knelt down next to the 3yo and said my prayer out loud in vocabulary meant for a 3yo to hear. Then we moved on to the chapel, glassed-in and with a closed red curtain behind the glass, where they keep the Shroud; there is a picture or a replica hanging in front of it, which confused the kids at first. I stayed out, though, because there was a sign saying “silencio” and I was gripping the 3yo. Across on the other side was the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, the red lamp burning, and we paused there for a moment; and then we left.

It was clear from the 3yo and the 11yo that we were not going to walk twenty minutes to the basilica. I gathered the children together, while Mark bought the 7yo a holy water fon
t from the gift shop, and swept past the beggars holding out their cups, an old and easy habit from one who has lived in cities all her life (and remembers well being followed and grasped at by strange men in foreign cities)—and thought of Bl. Piergiorgio, the rich young man who quietly made real friendships with the poor in this very city, who gave his life for them, whose parents were amazed when throngs turned out to mourn him.

We are advised by wise people, including our pastors, not to give alms directly to beggars. And Piergiorgio is not a hero because, among other reasons, he gave alms to the poor—any rich young man can do that—but because he made relationships with them.

Nevertheless, sometimes we are shown that contrast is striking, between ourselves and what we would like to be.

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So we walked on, past the archeological park with its remains of the theater from the old Roman castrum.

And out through terrifying traffic, including a near-mishap in a multi-lane roundabout. Mark swore and I covered my face with my hands. We made it out alive.

People parallel parked in two rows on the street. We have no idea how that was supposed to work.

 

Eventually we came back into the Val d’Aosta. Here we had a good view of the rock face that our teenager climbed with Jeff the guide and the aspiring aspirant guide the previous week.

And the ubiquitous castles-on-a-hill that dot the valley.

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Finally, around 7:30 pm, we rolled through the Mont Blanc tunnel and back into Chamonix, where the other apartment and most of our stuff was waiting for us. I was in a sleeveless top, having been walking on the beach this morning; here there was fog, and snow mid-mountain, and I shivered. The 3yo was so very stressed out (and had wet his pants) that I took him right in, stripped him, and put him to bed and nursed him there.

Then Mark and I found hats and socks and warm coats and headed out in search of pizza. We ordered four pizzas to carry out, and two glasses of wine to drink while we waited for them. It was perfectly comfortable under the heated awning, and our wine glasses were warm in our hands. Nice; almost all the red wine in Liguria had come chilled, and I was glad to drink wine that was not cold.

It really felt like a homecoming. The kids devoured the pizza, and settled in to watch some videos, and everyone calmed down just a little bit.

Four nights here, and then we move on again.