Autumn: colours and smog

I had high hopes on finishing this post before the first snowfall. Alas, it snowed last week. Ah well. At least it's before the formal onset of winter.

As usual, I have a partial excuse - for the past few weeks I had been in a panic mode about having agreed to present here. What had seemed like a good idea back in the summer, seemed less and less like a good idea as the day was approaching. But I survived, and now that I resurfaced to life and am back from some work travels, I can finally scramble up an update. 

I'm not entirely sure how we've gone so fast from drinking white wine in t-shirts, to drinking red wine in coats, but unmistakably here we are.  

So what have we been up to this autumn? Back in the t-shirt-and-white-wine days we celebrated Miky's birthday.

Not hard to guess which country they are from...

We also had quite a few visitors. First my parents, who came to see what fabulous place we live in. We explored Turin, practically guided by my Mum, who - in spite of being here for the first time - turned out to be way more knowledgeable about the city than we were. Embarassing.

 

 

We promised ourselves that for our next visitors we wouldn't be caught off-guard, and we'd study to be decent city guides. Or we would at least know the names of the most important highlights. Which, when Miky's friends from Germany came, didn't exactly work out.

So, just in case, for the next friends who came (and for ourselves) we booked a bicycle guided tour. Just in case. Thankfully.

We also progressed in more or less shaping our house into a home (notwithstanding the limitations of the existing furniture and the uniquely hideous floor). 

In the process...

... looking better.

As an achievement I've been aspiring to for years, I even finally managed to hang my Ethiopian curtains.

And for the rest, we just tried to escape the town whenever possible (at least while I wasn't wholly absorbed by the workshop panic). Because while Turin is all hip and eco and cool, at the same time it sits at the corner of the Po valley, surrounded by 180° of mountains; and just like dust-balls accumulate in corners, pollution coming from the whole of the valley often gets stuck over Turin and sits on it like a cover on a pot. Having no rain from early August to late October didn't help matters; so when we could, we went out in search of sun and blue skies.

We mostly kept to the valleys around Turin: Val Chisone and Val di Susa...

 

Forte di Fenestrelle

Bosco di Salbertrand

The joys of local produce

... Val Pellice...

One of the convenient sides of Italy: wine is omnipresent and plentiful, even in the mountains

Spot the person on the top

Winter is coming

... and more of Val di Susa.

The entrance to Val di Susa below us...

... with Sacra di San Michele, which inspired the monastery in Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose

Rocca Sella. On most hill- and mountain-tops, there is the Madonna. Can't decide if I find it cute or annoying.

But in spite of trying to run away from the urban, I do have to point out that I'm still a big fan of Turin city (and one day, I'll get to write a post on it). And there isn't always smog. On a clear day, the view from our bedroom is this:

And for our next visitors, we will really, surely, truly be prepared.