10Oct12 Cuneo
Travel from Lake Como to Cuneo. Fast train from Milan to Turino got up to 293km/h! Very smooth and it didn't feel anywhere near as fast as the registered speed.
Arrived at Cuneo. Good looking town from the train. Supposed to be a compressed version of Turino. Not a single english speaking tourist to be heard and no tourist information which was a problem as we did not have a map. We had a general idea of where to head and then found a centro sign and followed along to the town square and onto our 14th century accommodation. We found a very helpful and friendly person whom we asked a lot of questions regarding walking in the mountains and truffle hunting. It turned out that September was the best month for walking and most of the local transport to the parks had now finished.
We wandered around the old town and found it a little tired but interesting. The pace was slow and there was plenty of time for the locals to stop and chat with each other. We were happily being ignored as we generally like it when wandering a town. Blending in with the locals is what we believe we are doing. The reality is that they know we are foreigners but just are not interested in us.
The Italians in this area and also further up north are as fair skinned as we are which is a bit of a surprise. We could, with a bit of language, culture coaching and a good set of neat clothing become locals! We were mistaken by Americans, who we though were Asians, who thought we were Italians. A tangled mess off assumptions. Still we have already passed off as Italians to foreigner and I seem to recall being mistaken for Germans in the past.
We settled for a pizza for dinner after finding that the restaurants did not open until 730pm.
