September 24, 2026

Thursday

Torino, Piemonte, Italia

I was on task this morning. Up and ready to entertain the girls at 06:00. The night went well, not a single interruption all night long. It is now 07:30 and all is still quiet. I have had my morning cappuccino. Now is just a waiting game to see when the girls get up. I understand that yesterday they slept until 08:30, but that they were up late. We’ll see how it goes this morning.

Just a few minutes ago the night nurse left. Mary and the girls are still asleep. Nonna Damilia just texted she is going to Torteria40 to ask them to save croissants for us. Apparently yesterday when she went down they were out of croissants with jam 08:00 another text from Nonna Damilia, she is on her way over. It is 08:00 so I go and wake Mary up so we can start the day properly.

Finally, about 08:25 the girls are starting to make some noise. Nonni Damilia and Mary get the girls dressed and feed them a little bit. Then about 09:50 we head out to Torteria40 for our morning cappuccino and brioche. Nonna Damilia texts Gloria to meet us at Torteria40, rather than coming to the house.

We sit outside Torteria40 and enjoy our croissants and coffee. The we head over to Giardino Aiula Balbo which has a Parko Giochi (playground). We watch the girls on the swings, Luisa is good all by herself, but Amadea need pushing. They climb on the rope tent, walk on the balance beam, and go down the slide. After about and hour and a half we are tired and round the girls up and head back to the house.

Il Giardino from the playground.

It is Gloria’s birthday, so the plan is to make Gloria a cake. We have some lunch and the girls go down for a nap, along with Nonno. About 14:30 we are all back up and ready to bake a cake. Everyone is in the kitchen messing up a storm. The cake is multi layered and each layer a different color. Things were simply to busy to remember to take a photo unfortunately.

 Yes, found a photo. Four layers filled with candy. It was a big hit.

Serra took the girls show shopping. The Nonni made dinner. Pietro had a friend from Thailand visiting. He has come to help with the grape harvest this weekend. Dinner was lasagna, one meat and one vegetable, and a salad. After dinner the Nonni washed the dishes, and then we headed back to our respective hovels.

It had gone 20:00 and the Piazza was still very busy. It is Thursday night, and as we recalled the Piazza was generally very busy Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Apparently, the university doesn’t have classes on Friday, which gives the students a three day weekend.

We were quite worn out. We hit the sheets even before 21:00. The night has cooled down so it won’t be uncomfortable without any air conditioning. Didn’t quite reach our step goal of 10,000 steps today, despite chasing the girls around the park. Only 8,300 steps. Tomorrow will be more difficult as we are riding up to Sondrio in the afternoon. The weather looks good for the grape harvest on Saturday or Sunday, we still have little information.

We do know we will be going to Mariaguilia’s for dinner on Saturday and apparently a nice sit-down dinner in a restaurant on Sunday. Saturday’s dinner will be the best one of the weekend. Mariaguilia is a great cook.

Buonanotte & Ciao

Enrico and Maria