A little about Alessandria

June 25, 2008
So, perhaps it is time to talk a little about our city, Alessandria. The main question prior to our coming from friends and family was, “why Alessandria? What do you know about it”? The answer was quite simple; we knew nothing other than we decided to totally trust someone we’d just met and barely knew. (Note: We met Aurelie and her husband Francesco (and baby Marco) through our friend Mike Barnett. Mike and Francesco are Microsoft colleagues and Francesco and Aurelie have been in Seattle for about a year. Francesco is from Southern Italy and Aurelie is from outside of Paris). It was over dinner one night that, for me, a totally intuitive trusting took place and I told Kim I thought that Aurelie knew what she was talking about and that she had quickly figured out what we wanted. She heard us say that we wanted a real Italian experience, little or no tourism, a place where we didn’t need a car, a place where there was good train access and a place that would be more affordable given the conversion rate of our dollar and the Euro. All of this partially sums up Alessandria. Aurelie lived here (in the same apartment we are in now) for two years while she was in school. We are slowly meeting our neighbors in this complex and it is very obvious that she was very well liked and is much missed. We have a hard act to follow!

Our apartment resides in the more central and older part of the city; consequently, charm and Italian architectural beauty abounds. The streets are skinny and cobblestoned. There are a number of churches (with bells attached), piazzas, beautiful buildings with iron balconies and huge wooden doors. And, there are stores, stores, stores, and more stores. Many with a traditional specialization, i.e. the bakery, the cheese store, the fish market, the meat market, vegetable bins out front everywhere. At the same time there are small “mall type areas” that have multiple stores within—often mostly clothing but there is one place we’ve been to a number of times that’s like a mini version of Pier I. Also, there are a few more what we would call traditional style grocery stores that sell most of everything.

The streets are to me, like a rat’s maze and it has taken me these last couple of weeks to finally begin to feel a bit better oriented. There is a section in the center that is almost all pedestrian and it is a major evening and weekend hang- out for the city folk of all ages. People stroll leisurely looking into windows, buying a little something to eat which turns out to mostly be gelato. Do they love their gelato; that is a business to be in! Kim is in seventh heaven when it comes to this tradition. I have grown very fond of the limone flavor and she tends to experiment with multiple varieties.

The intertwining of streets has been okay because that is how we have discovered various places and additional stores that might come in handy. I am constantly reminded that it really doesn’t matter if we get lost because we have the time and are on no real set agenda. Usually the bigger agenda factor becomes time of day, noon until about 3 or 3:30 when it’s quite hot and most stores close. There is a very sound logical reason for this. The heat makes it hard to do anything so why even try?

One happy example for me of just wandering through unknown areas would be our discovery of a store that can be compared to a hardware store; how I love a good hardware store! In our search for a fan, as we were walking to a destination that we were told would have fans, I spied a fan out front of a store. We quickly went and grabbed the fan but within about a nanosecond a young woman was “almost” yelling at us that it was not for sale and that we would have to come back tomorrow….so, we figured out that it was a display model and they must be out of stock. Since we were there we decided to look around to see what else they had and probably would not sell me. This is when we discovered that it is hardware store-like and we will be back!

There is so much more to say about this city that was founded in 1168 and was partially destroyed by Napoleon. For today, however, I will end with one last image and that is of bicycling. Everyone either has a car, a moped (how I miss mine!) or a bicycle. Bikes are ridden everywhere by everyone. And, when I say everyone, I include the over 60 on up crowd. It amazes me every time to see older men and women (they have to be closer to 80’s) riding their bicycle to whatever destination they are seeking. Have any of you seen such a site in the US with great regularity? I told Kim that I wish I could start taking pictures of folks (older) on bikes but I worry that they might yell at me. I will have to explore this further because it is an encouraging, endearing and charming sight. And finally, speaking of bikes, we have a couple of leads on where we might go to buy bikes for ourselves and then we will at least look like we fit in.

Kim feels compelled to add:
Wish I had a banner like CNN: Cribbage score is now tied 8-8; Hollywood is now 17-5 USA, USA, USA. Someone may care, Rachel ….Berta??? Anyone???