La Via Cavagnolesi

Sorry for the delay, folks! We're having a blast in Florence/Firenze now, but had no internet access during our stay in the small towns of Northern Italy. I just had my morning cappucino and croissant from the corner caffeteria (check the last photo posted), and now I'm sitting in the internet cafe next to our guest house, and loving every minute of being in Firenze so this will be a short recap with more to come later!

snow outside Courmayeur on our bus ride under  Mont Blanc, through Aosta to Torino

We arrived in Torino in the afternoon on December 22nd after a snowy busride through the Alps. It was really fun to bus through and see all the lovely scenery. We took the train to Chivasso, where we had planned to call Francesco Capello on our cell phone... unfortunately the French SIM card we bought did not work in Italy, but we used a pay phone (yes they still exist!) and soon a man with flowing white hair and a completely mustard outfit was strolling toward us saying "....Saree? Saree?" Signore Capello had invited his english-speaking friend Flavio to join us for a tour of historic Chivasso, but first we got coffee and piccolini (a small puffy hazelnut dessert popular in the region) at the oldest caffeteria in Chivasso. We were then taken to see Francesco's studio, met his wife, and headed to the airpost to get Alex (REUNION!!!), then to Brusasco to see the place we'd be staying for a few days. Obviously, we were already meeting the nicest people in the world -- why else would you cart around complete strangers, helping them every step of the way, feeding them and giving them history lessons, unless you'd been heaven sent?

Flavio and the Capellos, who gave us a tour of Chivasso and drove us to Brusasco on our first night in Italy

a view of foggy Cavagnolo-Brusasco from the hillside

Siri and Alex walk the hills of Piemonte with their photog in tow (yours truly)

Everyone kept wondering why we wanted to hang out in such small towns, and we responded, with such good people, great food and lovely countryside, where ELSE would we want to be? Everyone in Brusasco and Cavangolo will insist they speak very poor English (untrue), but with our very limited Italian phrases and their varying degrees of English we were able to et along quite well. Siri mused that itwould be a similar situation if three Italians showed up in her hometown of Jackson, MN, which has the same population as Brusasco-Cavagnolo, about 1000 inhabitants. We immediately found a sweet shop and cafe we loved and returned to daily, took a walk on the hillside, enjoyed the house's warm radiators, large kitchen table (perfect for games of Scrabble), and TV where we could watch Italan-dubbed American classics such as Die-hard.


il Dolcezze Cavagnolesi -- a lovely sweet shop!



The Christmas Day dinner crew -- back row: Alex, Alessio, Fabio, front row: me, Daniella, Carlotta, Siri

 Christmas Eve we went out on the town with Gabriella Ferrero to a nice dinner in downtown Torino. Christmas Day was spent with the Mussano family in a little hillside town called Montelero, where we were served a true Italian family dinner with about nine courses in the utmost syle and everything was DELICIOUS. It was so great to spend time with a family during the holiday, though it made me miss my own family because like mine, this family was boisterous, funny, cooked delisìcious food and just overall made it a grand party! Certainly a Christmas I'll never forget.
I'll writesoon about Florence, but it's museum time now! Arrivedercci, or as Gabri would say, "Ciao -- Ciao ciao ciao CIAO" :)

Firenze: the caffeteria/pasticerria near our guest house, cheers!