travel money

Gelateria Miretti

Each country has its own system and payment preferences, taxes, commissions and tipping rules, in short "monetary customs".

Certain countries like Italy still love cash a lot, especially when you deal with independent providers. This is because the Italian fiscal system is "totally unsustainable and overwhelming" as the European Union put it years ago...

However, this post won't be about the average Italian financial situation, the 1000E/mo generation or our high VAT (22% included in every price you see) but rather about a few travel tips.

memory stones

In Turin we like details, not only on our historic palazzos but also on the sidewalks we take on a daily basis. Whenever a friend, a follower, a guest or a visitor comes to town we always show them our "memory stones" or pietre d'inciampo for those of you who love Italian, or stolperstein in German.

Ottolenghi is a common family name here in Piedmont, whenever you think about the chef, think of us here

Turin's tarots

Magic and Turin go hand in hand because of many reasons, we have already seen how occult symbols are spread all around town in this post by Mari Biella who took part to TurinEpi16.

As a general rule, Italians are very much drawn to magic, according to statistics there is one self-declared and practicing psychic every five Italians. On top of that, if we go into angels and Satanic sects, Turin scores number one in the Italian cities for highest number of people who have seen an angel and number of Satanist groups.

4 palazzos in Turin

Turin is magic but to the non locals it is always quite hard to understand why...

Most Italians instantly think about our esoteric background, in fact, the city is full of magic symbols  on our palazzos and even underground, Turin never stops to amaze you.

What we really refer to though is our atmosphere, because Turin is just unique thanks to its gorgeous palazzos and many historical architecture styles.

Here are 4 palazzos, you can partially visit for free to get a direct sense of our local magic 😎

G is for Genepy

Elda's Genepy

Our friend Elda has recently gifted us with a bottle of her own artisan Genepy. As this is a traditional Northwestern Alpine liquor, this is what we are sharing with you today.

Piedmont's very diverse landscape can be  divided in layers: a crown of mountains - the Alps, a ring of hills - where our wines and truffles are from, the plain with the longest Italian river, the Po and the lakes flow. This rich diversity in our landscapes generates an amazing variety of climates and biodiversity,  and consequently, of both natural and artisan products.

Seasonality is another key word whenever we are talking of our local products, because wines, cheeses and local dishes are forced to follow the four distinct season Piedmont enjoys every year.

This is why we love to say that in our region, fashion and food together follow the seasons 😁 

So, it doesn't come as a surprise that the very first Italian National Park - Parco Nazionale del Gran Paradiso (established back in 1922) is also located here in Piedmont where we have always felt a deep connection to nature and its rhythms. 

Genepy is a traditional product of the Western side of Piedmont and can also be produced in our neighboring Valle D'Aosta region.

It is made only from specific  and locally grown varieties of the Artemisia genus, a medicinal herb  or shrub of the family of mugwort, sagebrush and wormwood. One of these local varieties is called Genepi because it is used to make this liquor.

These are short, hard herbaceous plants that grow up among the rocks near where glaciers start, at 2000/2700 m or 6561/8858 ft. These short shrubs are 5 to 20 cm or 2 to 8 in tall and follow a quick vital cycle, so they must be picked fairly quickly, at the end of the Alpine summer.