Turin – Torino & through the looking glass

Saturday, 29 July 2023

◄ Salone Internazionale del Libro – Turin Book Festival

Alice through the looking glass – attraverso lo specchio in Italian – was the theme of the event and I was there with EDT – Edizioni di Torino – the publishers of Italian language editions of Lonely Planet. Once again I was knocked out not only by all their Lonely Planet translations, but also all the Lonely Planet Italy books that they produce which are never seen in English. They’re books exclusively for the Italian market.

 

 

LP-EDT books at the Turin Book Festival ▼

◄ My Melbourne to London trip took me via South Korea, Japan, a cruise ship across the Pacific, Alaska, Canada and the USA and then, from San Francisco, on that always wonderful route across northern Canada before stopping very briefly in London. Ryanair failed to get me to Turin, not really their fault, but British Airways did the job.

 

▲ LP 50th party at the Supermarket Club – for me the weekend kicked off with a Lonely Planet 50th birthday party, it should have been outdoors at the main square in Turin, but torrential rain forced us indoors. I’d only just made it on time and I tell the audience I’ve come here by a circuitous route from Australia, but it only went wrong at the last step when Ryanair cancelled my flight to Turin. Well that gets a big laugh, making fun of Ryanair always works it would appear.

◄ Double Tree by Hilton Turin, Lingotto – I’m staying in this very architecturally interesting hotel part of the imaginative conversion of Fiat’s amazing 1923 car factory with a test track on the roof.

▲ I’m on stage during the festival with Vinicio Capossela, Angelo Pittro and my translator Simona Caldera. Vinicio has been called ‘the Tom Waits’ of Italy and he has just released a song Tempo di Regali – Time for Gifts – inspired by Patrick Leigh Fermor’s classic ‘walk from London to Istanbul when you’re 18 years old’ book Time of Gifts

◄ Great street art in Turin, this is by Dzmitryi Kashtalyan

 

Finally I depart Turin (Torino) on the high speed Red Arrow (Frecciarossa) train taking me to Milan (Milano) before it continues on to Rome (Roma) and all the way south to Naples (Napoli). ▼