Torino, Italia
Good morning. Raining today, not really hard but at a good pace. Damilia was taking the first shift at Serra and Pietro’s with Lulu, at least until Gloria arrives at 9. She and I met at The Place, a coffee shop near the university, at 07:15 for a coffee and brioche. The internet said they opened at 07:00. However, it is more like they show up at 07:00 and begin opening up. They were still stumbling to get it all together at 07:15.
We did manage to get coffee and a brioche, and finish it before 07:30. I walked with Damilia to Serra and Pietro’s and then back to our apartment. I wrote in my blog, had a coffee, and worked on figuring out what to do today. I managed to download the GTT App. The GTT App allows you to pay for public transportation using your phone. After Mary got up I downloaded it to her phone as well. After some tea and a little bit to eat, Mary and I headed out to the Mercato Centrale in Piazza della Repubblica.
It appears to be a short streetcar ride down Corso San Maurizio to Corso Regina Margherita and boom you are there. We had our tickets at the ready but couldn’t find where to scan them. We tried. We had tickets so we rode the streetcar and got off. I miscalculated a little and was one stop short of our destination, but we need steps, right. I kept telling Mary that I thought it was like the Mercato Centrale in Firenze.
Well it is similar to but not really like the Mercato Centrale in Firenze. The entire Piazza Della Repubblica is much larger than the Mercato Centrale in Firenze. Understand it is raining, open air stalls generally don’t deal well with rain. Palazzo della Repubblica is in the heart of Torino, on the border between the Aurora and Centro districts. Also called Porta Palazzo, it currently hosts the largest open-air market in Europe. The name derives from the access gates to the Roman fortified city Augusta Taurinorum.
Duke Vittorio Amedeo II of Savoy, at the beginning of the 18th century, began an important process of urban renewal involving the area known as Contrada di Porta Palazza. The project aimed to redesign the suburban area that travelers passed through to enter the city from the north. In 1701, the gate of the same name was built, and in the following decades, under the direction of the architect Filippo Juvarra, what was originally intended to be a majestic parade ground took shape, a place where foreigners and subjects could admire military parades, in a riot of colors and the gleam of sabers. In those years, it was called Piazza Vittoria.
In 1800 Napoleon Bonaparte ordered the dismantling of the walls surrounding the city and the area of Porta Palazzo became an integral part of the city. The octagonal square was designed by Lombardi in 1819, and largely remains unchanged. The name changed when the throne of Savoy was returned after Napoleon left,
During the 19th century, the square increasingly became a place dedicated to commerce. In 1836, two symmetrical buildings were built, designed by the engineer Barone and used as a covered food market. In 1845, Porta Palazzo established itself as a hub for urban and intermunicipal communication. There were two lines, one that led from Borgo Nuovo to Porta Palazzo and the other from Porta Susa to Gran Madre; later the lines became five that started from Piazza Castello, later another six were added, four of which ended in Porta Palazzo. In the second half of the nineteenth century, horse-drawn omnibuses left for Druento, Leinì, Rivarolo and Settimo Torinese.
An important station was located in the neighborhood in Corso Giulio Cesare and was the Turin-Ceres station. The area delimited by Piazza della Repubblica, Via Milano, Via Basilica and Via Egidi known as Blocco Santa Croce, hosted the Mauriziano hospital for three centuries. In 1884 the hospital moved to its current location and in 1890 the Galleria Umberto I was inaugurated, accessible from Via Basilica and Piazza della Repubblica, typical for its T-shaped structure. Later, in 1916, the metal and glass structure of the Clock Market was built.
The umpteenth toponymic change occurred in 1946, when Porta Palazzo acquired its current name of Piazza della Repubblica, following the fall of the fascist dictatorship in Italy.
Since the 19th century, Porta Palazzo has welcomed the waves of migrants that poured into the city like a real port, offering accommodation and an entry into the economic mechanism of the market to the first, second and third immigrants. In the square, history repeats itself cyclically: at the end of the 19th century, farmers arrived from the countryside around the city, between 1955 and 1970, immigrants from the east and south of the country and, starting in the 1990s, foreigners from North Africa, South America, the East and Eastern Europe. Everyone landed at Porta Palazzo, each in their own era and with their own means. To the southerners who since the 1950s and 1960s have gathered as a ritual at Porta Palazzo on Sundays, today, Moroccans, Romanians, Albanians, and Chinese are added in the various corners of the square, depending on their country of origin.
In fact, for years, Piazza della Repubblica has hosted the city's largest concentration of resident foreign population. Piazza della Repubblica is the most traditional and important city retail market for food, clothing and all types of merchandise, which, between pavilions, stalls, vans and tarpaulins on the sidewalks, occupies almost every inch of land; it is estimated that, on Saturdays, around one hundred thousand people wander around the stalls. Here on a rainy day there aren’t 100,000 but there are quite a few.
Apparently, every Saturday there is the characteristic Balon, the Turin flea market, which every second Sunday of the month becomes the Grand Balon, a truly picturesque market full of interesting products, in which about 200 exhibitors participate.
In the square, four large buildings coexist with each other, to which are added "the canopies":
In the eastern quadrant, the 1916 building of the Mercato IV Alimentare or dell'Orologio coexists, containing ninety-six points of sale of meat, bread and many other specialties, and two open canopies: the one for the Casalinghi along Corso Giulio Cesare and the one intended for the Direct Producers or more simply Farmers between the building and the perimeter road.
In the southern quadrant, the Mercato V Alimentare or Mercato delle Carni coexists, built in 1836, rebuilt in the 30s and restored in the 50s, containing forty-five points of sale, and the open-air Fruit and Vegetable Market.
In the western quadrant there is the Mercato II or Fish Market, built in 1836, rebuilt in 1900 and restored in 1995, it hosts eighteen stores on the lower floor, and the offices of the Municipal Police on the upper floor. In the area in front of it there is the clothing market.
In the northern quadrant hosted the clothing market from 1963-66. Then a new structure was built, Palazzo Fuksass. Here on the lower floor was the clothing market, while on the upper floor hosted the Road House club of the singer Cesare Cremonini. In 2005 it was remodeled again, and was the home for "Torino Triennale Tremusei", a new triennial contemporary art exhibition organized by GAM Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Castello di Rivoli and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo. In 2013 it was remodeled and opened again in 2014. Now the lower floor was a large food court and the upper floor was designed for shops. It was in here that we had lunch. Fried chicken, roast potatoes and steamed vegetables.
Since the 19th century retail markets were held on the four sides of the square, have never been moved, despite the now numerous hypermarkets and shopping centers, probably their operators still represent the maximum commercial reality of the city, at least for the food sector. Together with the Balon it attracts tens of thousands of consumers every day for its moderate prices and its colorful heterogeneity. Edmondo De Amicis wrote: "to see the Piazza in all its beauty you have to be there on a Saturday morning in winter, in the middle of the market." The maps of ethnic gastronomic activities, drawn up by Chef Kumalè on behalf of The Gate project in 2001, show how, despite the changes of recent years, Porta Palazzo continues to be the reference point for shopping for everyone, new arrivals, long-time immigrants, and natives.
After lunch we hopped on the #4 tram and rode across town to Via Roma and the Bialetti Store. We needed a bigger moka pot and perhaps a frother. We found both. We got a 6 cup Moka pot which will work on the induction stove, and a Bialetti branded milk foamer. The cool part about the foamer is that is will not only make really good foam but will also just allow you to heat the milk, for those, like Mary, who don’t appreciate foam.
We then walked back to the apartment where we rested for a while. Afterwards we headed over to Serra and Pietro’s to take of of Luisa for a while after Gloria got off at 6 and before the night nurse came at 19:30. Again after which we returned to our apartment for the evening. Maybe Serra will come home tomorrow.
Buonanotte e ciao, Enrico e Maria
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