Olympic Games introduce tourism to Italy's Piedmont
Region
Host
to the 2006 Winter Olympics Games, the world's attention
was drawn to Italy's Piedmont Region, where skiers,
skaters, snowboarders and over one million spectators
from around the globe gathered for the quadrennial celebration
of winter sport.
American
travelers - for whom Torino and northwestern Italy is
an unknown corner of Europe, often overlooked in favor
of Paris, London and Rome - are in for a pleasant surprise.
The Piedmont Region offers several world-class attractions:
from outstanding ski slopes to first-rate cuisine to
the many opulent castles and mansions of the Savoy royal
family. Whether you're one of the one million Olympic
visitors or just planning a european getaway, you're
sure to fall in love with this Italian hideaway.
Winter
Sports
With magnificent ski resorts mixed in with traditional
mountain villages, all surrounded by unspoiled woods
and forests, the Piedmont Alps is set to captivate the
world as the setting for the 2006 Olympic Games. The
region offers winter sports enthusiasts more than 1,200
miles of ski runs, spanning from the Maritime Alps to
the Monviso and the Susa Valley to Monte Rosa. The Olympic
Mountain's renowned ski resorts all are located within
60 miles of Torino, including Sestriere, Sauze d'Oulx,
Claviere, Cesana Sansicario, Bardonecchia, Prali and
Pragelato. Nestled in the snow-drenched area nicknamed
"the Milky Way," these resorts offer varied
options including dynamic downhill skiing, cross-country
skiing, snowboarding, heli-skiing, nighttime skiing,
ice-skating, ice climbing and dog sledding with Siberian
Huskies.
Culinary
Delights
To experience the Piedmont Region is to experience culinary
delights that can be found nowhere else. With meals
made of impeccably fresh ingredients, dug from just
over the next hill, or picked from the field just outside
the kitchen window, it's no exaggeration to say the
people of the Piedmont region live to eat and drink:
as the saying goes, in Piedmont baby's comforters are
dipped in wine!
Piedmont
is home to the Slow Food Movement, a global organization
founded in the small town of Bra. Heralded as the "cure"
for a distressingly fast-food world, slow food promotes
the sanctity of taste, taste education and food preservation
with fairs and events and also produces food and wine
guides.
Piedmont
also is home to tuber magnatum pico, commonly known
as the white truffle, a fungus coveted by gourmands
around the world. Piedmont now is in the height of white
truffle season (late October through early December),
and a pound of the tubers can go for more than $2,000.
The
region boasts cheeses subtle and sharp, creamy and dense,
crafted in equal parts by favorable natural conditions
and human ingenuity. Stars include the Toma of Piedmont,
among eight Castelmagno regional DOP cheeses whose quality
is recognized and protected by the government.
Piedmont's
divine Tonda Gentile, hazelnut, a uniquely sweet variety
so special that it has been award European Union Protected
Geographic Indication status - a sort of food patent
that separates it from inferior imposters. It is the
centerpiece of Nutella, the hazelnut and chocolate spread
that has become a worldwide favorite, as well as the
central ingredient in the regional hazelnut torte -
not to mention ice creams and other confections.Piedmont
also nurtures the grapes that make the region one of
the world's best wine producers. Of Italy's 20 regions,
Piedmont leads the pack in number of wines that meet
the exacting standards to be awarded DOCG (Denominazione
di Origine Controllata e Garantita) status, including
bold red Barolos; complex, dry, Gattinaras and sweet,
lighthearted white Astis.Year-Round
Beauty
Piedmont's Lake District provides breathtaking vistas
and rejuvenating waters. The great Lake Maggiore, the
smaller Lake Orta, both just 90 minutes from Torino,
shimmer like the most exquisite precious stones. The
lush loveliness of gardens, trees and scenery are fitting
backdrops to the splendor of the lakes, while perfectly
preserved villas, luxurious modern resorts and charming
fishing villages that have changed little over the centuries.Piedmont's
stunning parks and mountains, and the region's wide,
untouched valleys, lakes and rivers, offer world-class
hiking, mountain climbing, kayaking, rowing, cycling,
paragliding, horseback riding and five of the top ten
golf resorts in Italy. The Alpine valleys close to Torino
- Lanzo, Susa, Chisone, Germanasca and Pellice - are
ideal for both day hikes and lengthy treks, taking visitors
as far as the Gran Paradiso, Italy's oldest national
park.The
Olympic Mountain Range is a lush paradise for sports
enthusiasts and amblers, with tough rock faces for climbers.
Other outdoor activities include canoeing, rafting,
hiking scenic wooded trails, lush valleys and pristine
lakes. Piedmont's dramatic wilderness also stretches
far beyond the greater Torino area, with parks such
as Alpe Devero inviting visitors to hike through pastures
and grasslands to the Devero Lake, nestled in a mountain
basin shaped by glaciers in the northern part of Piedmont,
near Switzerland.
Culture
and History
The Piedmont Region is the intersection of many critical
moments in Western civilization and offers several museums
and attractions that serve as windows to the past. Following
are just a few of the cultural landmarks in the region,
with their web site addresses. For a complete listing
of cultural and historic landmarks in the Piedmont Region,
visit www.PiemonteFeel.It.
Egyptian
Museum in Turin
Chapel
of the Holy Shroud in Torino
The
Royal Palace of Venaria
Museum
of Contemporary Art in the Castle of Rivoli, Torino
National
Cinema Museum in TurinGetting
To the Piedmont Region
The Piedmont Region is served by two airports: Torino
International Airport (TIA),
) in Caselle and Malpensa
2000 Airport in Milan.TIA
is one of the most modern and functional airports in
Europe located 16 miles from downtown Torino. Easily
accessible and congestion free, it can handle over 3
million passengers annually. Seventeen airlines operate
over 450 weekly scheduled departures linking Torino
to 25 destinations, 15 of which are international. Intercontinental
links are provided through Malpensa 2000, one of Europe's
largest hubs with easy connections from Paris, London
and the United States. Malpensa is a popular arrival
point for U.S. passengers, with direct service from
most major airlines.All
of the major car rental firms have counters at both
airports. If you plan to travel outside the downtown
area, a rental car is highly recommended. Six different
motorways connect Torino to major European cities: Milan
in 60 minutes, Genoa in 90, Nice and Geneva in two and
a half hours, Lyon in three hours and Zurich in four. Five
railway stations, two of them international, make access
easy from all of Italy and bordering countries: four
pairs of high-speed trains travel between Torino and
Paris in little more than five hours. Region
Piedmont Web Site
The Region Piedmont in northwest Italy launched a comprehensive
new web site, PiemonteFeel.It,
which provides a wealth of timely information on what
to see, what to do and where to go in the Piedmont Region.
The
Region of Piedmont is located in northwest Italy, sharing
alpine peaks with neighboring France and Switzerland.
The Po River, Italy's largest, crosses through the region,
with capital city, Torino (Turin) in the valley. Piedmont
is a region rich in cuisine, culture and beautiful natural
landscapes, from snow-capped peaks to vineyard-covered
hills to clear mountain lakes. History is well preserved
in the region: Turin, after being the capital of the
Savoy reign for 300 years became in 1861 the first Italian
capital, It hosts the second most important Egyptian
Museum in the world, after Cairo, the Holy Shroud, the
famous self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, the opulent
palaces of the Savoy royal family and the National Museum
of Cinema. Torino (Turin), the region's capital, is
host to the 2006 Olympic Winter Games; visit www.torino2006.org for more information.
(Source: Travel
Wire News)
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