Piemonte Italia

Piemonte, is one of the Italian regions abounding in historical shops: confectionery shops, cafés, pharmacies, tobacconists, bookshops, hat shops... you’re spoilt for choice. With chocolate and whipped cream and an old Borsalino d’antan hat, a Galenic product and Felino salame, we start this itinerary by showing that, for each region, we have chosen places that take local production into consideration. Leaving aside Torino which merits an itinerary of its own we start with the Cuneo region, a province rich in historical commercial examples. For meat lovers the Macelleria Noero di Carrù is worth a visit – operating since Napoleonic times - its Albisola tiles were replaced by large slabs of grey marble; the Roma di Saluzzo café is a must, an old café chantant where one went to see the dances of Paris and the Fratelli Massimino di Bra (ironmonger’s shop) or the oreficeria Tallone di Fossano (jewellers). In Cuneo – just as Hemingway did – a stop-off at the Arione Caffé Pasticceria is compulsory, which has been producing the legendary “Cuneesi” for over a century, two meringue disks or a couple of iced wafers with a custard, chocolate and rum filling. The Asti region is also rich in historical shops: in Cocconato there is the farmacia SS Trinità (pharmacy), covered in precious boiserie panelling with engraved palmettes and once decorated with roses and peonies, while the negozio di tessuti Fratelli Pio di Asti (draper’s shop) has kept the period interiors and a cast iron shop window under the porticos. In Biella, after a visit to the calzaturificio Mello (shoe factory) established in 1907, famous for having produced the boots for some members of the K2 expedition in 1953, you must visit the Borsalino hat shop, the “made in Biella” product that seduced those such as Al Capone, Humphrey Bogart, the Blues Brothers and Harrison Ford. Travelling towards the region of rice, where during the period of the floods seemed like being in Vietnam, Vercelli seems to have the supremacy in pharmacies: there is the Ravera with the white marble portal and Ionic pilasters; Domenicone e Patrucco, secluded under the porticos, inside presents cap vaults, original marble shelving and counters with floral decorations; while, in the sumptuous Greppi, heavy wooden shelves rest on slender twisted columns. For those who after lots of medicines would like good chocolate there is the Pasticceria Taverna & Tarnuzzer which still lays claim to the sign “Fornitore della Real Casa” (Supplier of the Royal Family) and the old 1939 Marelli radio, still functioning, entertaining the clientele. In Alessandria, the Libreria Bertolotti (bookshop) merits a visit, with an L-shaped counter, divided into mirrors with various symbols: telescopic globe, book and goose quill, mandola and music score, grain and sickle or the antica merceria Bertero, built on two levels connected by a winding staircase with its three horseshoe-shaped counters. In Novara we find the Pasticceria Castoldi which sells its famous biscuits in an ambience that evokes the rationalist taste of the ‘30s, while the Edicola di piazza delle Erbe (newsagent’s), built in the early ‘900s, has an octagonal shape and presents an avant-corps displaying papers and magazines. Our itinerary finishes in the new Verbania Cusio Ossola province where, in Domodossola, in the Cappelleria-laboratorio Ombrelli Bortoli (Umbrella and hat shop-workshop) you can go to have a hat widened, buy a walking stick or an umbrella, which, if you are lucky, is also one of the models on display just a short distance away in the Museo dell’Ombrello di Gignese.