Asti

Once known as the town of a thousand towers during the 12^th and 13^th centuries, Asti (Ahs-tee, not ASS-tee) is now known best for its wines, including a dark red Barbera, a white Moscato (one of my favorites) and the sparkling Asti Spumante (which, by Italians is called just Asti to avoid being lumped in with the poor quality spumante from around the world). Asti first became a Roman colony in 124 BC (when it was a fortified camp) and rose to being one of the trading powers in Italy during the middle ages. By 1200, Asti was one of the richest cities in Italy. Their reign of self rule, like all of Italy, was short lived, with the power and banking issues dividing the city and making it weaker. By 1314, the Solaro family gave the city to Robert of Naples. It subsequently went through the hands of the Visconti, the Sforza, John II of Montferrat, the French and finally the Savoy family (It was actually a part of Beatrice of Portugal’s dowry so when Charles III of Savoy married her, it got included into their growing kingdom). The Savoy family held the city for a good while, with it becoming one of their more important strong holds during wars. The city was lost to the Spanish following the plague, which ravished the city and killed off large numbers of civilians (in about 1630). The Savoy family regained control fairly quickly and maintained control until 1703 then the French took Asti during the war of Spanish succession. It was reconquered in 1705 by Victor Amadeus II and was lost yet again in 1745 to the French, only to be freed yet again. In 1797 the Astigiani, enraged by the continuous military campaigns and by poor economic situation, revolted against the Savoy government. On July 28 the Repubblica Astese was declared. However, it was suppressed only two days later with the leaders of the revolution quickly being arrested and executed. The Savoy family was quickly kicked out of Asti, however, and the French retained control. Napoleon himself made a visit to the city in 1805 but was received so poorly by the citizens that he demoted the city. When the French empire fell, Asti returned to Piedmont (the same region as Torino, which, as you may remember, was run by the Savoy) in 1814 and became a part of Italy in 1861.

This was the center of Sunday’s day trip. Trains from Torino leave nearly every hour (but certainly not on the hour. I thought it was strange that there would be four or five trains to Asti one hour then none for two or three) and, on the slower regional train, take about 55 minutes to get there. We left our apartment around 7:40 in the morning to walk to the Torino Lingotto train station and walked out to a thick fog. The mornings here in Torino, especially since the humidity is closer to 75-80%, tend to be cold and foggy. The fog the last few days here has been so dense that it hangs around until three or four and the sun starts to set around 5 or 6 so enjoy the sunlight while you can. Sundays in Italy are another interesting thing because the city on the whole shuts down. You still see a bunch of people walking around town but they are all headed to church. Every store in Torino that we walked by was closed for the day and, though I’m sure it will be frustrating one day when I need to buy some food or something that I should have gotten on Saturday, it was actually very nice to see.

As we got to the old fiat factory, called the Lingotto, and went south on Via Nizza, the streets, being farther away from local churches, got more and more quiet. This, combined with dense fog, ravens and crows being the only sounds you hear, and being stared at by everybody you walk past created quite an unsettling feeling. We crossed over the train tracks and made our way to the station, which was fairly small (the Porta Nuova train station is the big one in Torino but most of the trains that start at Porta Nuova go thru the Lingotto train station). We purchased our tickets from a person who spoke no English and had no desire to slow down his Italian for our comprehension. With tickets in hand, we validated them (train tickets in Italy are good for about three months from the date of purchase so you have to validate them before using them or you will be forced to pay huge fines which are almost guaranteed to cost more than the ticket itself) and went to our platform.

Asti train Station

Having never been on a train, I had never been to a train station. I don’t know if it was just my experience today but I found train stations to be fairly ugly thus far. I had images of a more polished look like one could expect from the Kings Cross station or train stations you see in movies. I'm hoping that we just have seen some of the less attractive train stations because I was under the impression that train stations were second only to churches in most towns.

The thick fog in the area also put a bit of a damper on the train ride because I had hoped to get some good pictures of the Italian countryside but there wasn’t a whole lot to look at (or worth taking a picture of) during the train ride. The one thing I saw on the train ride that surprised me was a man hunting right alongside the train. This seems to go against most of what I would have imagined to be ideal about hunting in Italy. I would have imagined that a noisy train would be one of the last things you would want to be by, especially when on the other side of this field that cant be 100m across is what appeared to be a major road. I don’t know how well that would work for whatever he was hunting (which, assuming by the dog, shotgun, and bright orange vest, he was doing) or for the safety of those around him…

So once we arrived in Asti, we realized we made a mistake. We left our trusty guide book back at the apartment and were in a city with no map, no real idea where to go and not likely to meet anybody that speaks English. I was determined to see the city so I went into the nearest hotel and, in the best Italian I could do, asked her for a map and where she thought the best, coolest places would be to go on a Sunday in Asti when you only have a short amount of time. Surprisingly, she seemed to understand, gave us a small map and circled some of the major piazzas, towers, walls and churches that we should visit. I thanked her and we walked out of the hotel and went to the bar to be in a warm place and hopefully wait our the fog. We ordered our drinks (Nate got a Caffé and I got a cioccolatta) and had a seat. When our drinks arrived, Nate’s caffé was unusually small (it seemed small even by Italian coffee standards) and what I thought was a hot chocolate, was actually a hot chocolate pudding type thing (which was pretty good). We sat around talking, waiting to see a change in the fog but after about 30 minutes with no change, we decided to just get a move on.

One of the covered walkways in Asti

We set out down Via Cavour and quickly ran into piazza statuto and took some pictures of the small tower there and the first church (which I cant seem to find the name of anywhere). While we were taking pictures, this old Italian lady came up and told us that the church that we were taking pictures of was an ugly church and that there were many more beautiful churches through the city (I was thrilled to even understand what she was saying).

 

We continued on down Via Cavour and the road suddenly opened up into Piazza San Secondo. The church in San Secondo is very old, having been built during the 11^th centuries and being added on and touched up fairly frequently through the 17^th centuries. The doors we say had the year 1727 on them as you can see here. There were a couple of frescos and a relief above the door. 

      

We hung around the piazza for a moment then were on our way don Corso Vittorio Alfieri. According to the person at the hotel we talked to, this was the street that divided the town during its 12^th century demise with each side keeping to its half of the city. Down the road a little bit was Piazza Roma. In Piazza Roma there is a giant fortress looking building and a statue which can be seen below:

      

 

We crossed the street to a little park to take this shot, which seemed like a quintessential look in a small Italian village, minus the lamppost in the middle:

The kicker was that this park is Wifi ready. Wifi isn’t as available as we Americans would like it to be in Italy. I have internet at school and that’s about it. So far we have yet to find a good internet café but are intent on doing so but its not like you get easy access to internet, yet it exists in this old town in some side park…

Continuing on down C.V. Alfieri, we passed Palazzo Mazzetti

 

and an old monestary

and then came to Piazza Fratelli Cairoli and got to see a statue in honor of Umberto I (who helped defend the town from a Spanish invasion in 1650) as well as the Chiesa (church, pronounced Key-eh-sah) di san Giuseppe.

      

Down the road a bit farther was another tower that caught our attention but we were distracted by the sights and smells of a bakery that was getting ready to open (or so I would assume by the smell, we didn’t hang around to find out)

 

The tower we found was Torre Rossa (translates directly to Red Tower, very imaginative i know) which is next to S. Caterina, another church (more rotunda in style as opposed to a big square, rectangular or cross shaped building that most churches are today)

We continued down C.V. Alfieri and took a right, heading down Viale Dei Partigani. Sadly, the map we had been given didn’t include this part of town so we had no idea where we were. We chose to just run parallel with C.V. Alfieri. We ran found the old city wall and followed it for a while. The wall was very old and looked to be in more disrepair than what I’m expecting from the city walls to be in Siena, Viterbo… places like that, but it appears that they are trying to work on it a little to keep it standing and make it more tourist friendly.

 

Further down the road, we got to Piazza Paolo Lugano, saw this statue and turned back into the city, getting a couple more pictures by the city gates.

 

 

We went down Via Giovanni Giobert to Asti Cattedrale

 

Tower on the Piazza Medici

 

Statue to the Medici

And we continued on down to Piazza Medici where we got some good pictures of the statue dedicated to the Medici family as well as a giant tower on a corner of the Piazza that is in such good shape, that you can go up it in the summer. The statue is guarded by lions and is in great shape (for the most part, there was one girls face that got lopped off at some point in time), especially considering that it was dedicated, as you can see to the right here, in October of  1908, which, for historical reference, is before World War I was even close to getting started. I would like, however, to learn more about what the Medici did for Asti since it wasnt ever really held by the Tuscan area (Ruled my the Visconti from Milan, the Savoy from Toscany as well as an alternating between Spain and France)