River Po, Torino, May 2026

Monday morning started fine and cool. I went for a morning run down to Porta Nuova station and along Corso Vittorio Emanuele II to the River Po. It was a very beautiful still morning and the city was eerily quite. That was probably due to the 24 hour transport strike that had begun at midnight the night before. It affected trains, buses and trams and we were so lucky to have just missed it with our train travel from Milan.

Today we were collecting the campervan at 1pm, from Roadsurfer, at their base on the outskirts of Turin. We had checked the Uber cost was around 50 Euro, yet a Taxi was showing as around 25 Euro. On questioning  this at hotel reception we were told by the very flamboyant receptionist that people don’t like Uber in Italy and taxis are much better. We trusted local knowledge, asked them to order us a taxi at midday and went off for a stroll around the city

Giardino Alfredo Frassati, Torino, May 2026

We had a coffee at Caffe Torino in the piazza and took a walk around a couple of the little nearby parks. One park was clearly a favourite with dog walkers and it had a tree that was decorated with owner memory messages and photos of dogs that were sadly missed. It was both beautiful and sad to think of the great memories those owners must have had and how important that park would have been to both pet and owner.

Giardino Alfredo Fratassi, Torino, May 2026

Giardino Alfredo Fratassi, Torino, May 2026

Camper Pick-Up

A quick bite to eat was followed by a return to the hotel to be met by Luca, our driver. The next 20 minutes were a frenetic dash across Turin. In spite of being relatively young, Luca ran on such high levels of adrenaline you wondered whether he’d make it through the day without some sort cardiac event. Lots of muttering jesticulating and agitation on the wheel made us glad to be in the back.

We arrived at Roadsurfer unscathed and the fare was 23 Euros including a tip. Local knowledge was right again. We also learnt that taxis and other forms of public transport sometimes have designated lanes and the traffic lights in these have a white horizontal line for stop and a vertical one for go. A good lesson for the drive across Turin ahead.

Roadsurfer Pickup, Torino, May 2026

Matteo and Lisa at Roadsurfer were extremely friendly and helpful although the pick up process was very much a self-service affair. We had already had to complete an online tutorial about the van, prior to pick up, and now we were pointed to a further turorial to work through to familiarise ourselves with the van.

We spent a couple of hours going through everything and getting any questions answered before a meticulous check of any existing damage which was all logged onto their system. We’d read online it was important to get this right to avoid any previous damage being attributed, and charged, to you on return.

It was 4pm by the time we were ready to leave the depot and google maps was suggesting that a 40 km drive around the outer autoroute, to reach the campsite, was preferable to a 12 km one across town. We checked with Matteo who politely said that if it was him he’d chose the 12 km option but then he’d “lived in Turin for a while and maybe best if you use the autoroute!”. Again, we took local advice and headed off to Camping Grinto on the edge of a park and the only campsite I could find in the city.

Camping Grinto, Torino, May 2026

This would be our base for the next 2 nights while we organised the bike rental and made sure any problems with the vehicle were sorted before we were too far from help. It was lovely to have finally moved into what would be our “new home” for the next 6 weeks.

Bike Collection & Window Fix

Decathlon Grugliasco, Torino, May 2026

The bikes were to be collected from Decathlon Grugliasco, a vast sports warehouse also on the other side of the city. We’d run out of time to pick them up the day before so headed out early on Tuesday to do a shop and then collect them. This went without a hitch, the bikes were nothing flash but very well maintained and fairly new.

Once back at the campsite a problem cropped up. The side windows on the camper tilt out, and lock in position. You have to push them further out to release them. Unfortunately no-one had mentioned that if you push them too far out, the top of the window pops out of it’s hinge and was seemingly impossible to pop back in.

Warning, Camper Window, May 2026!

It was another 40km drive back to to Matteo who, rather embarassingly, had it fixed within moments. Clearly there was a technique that we hadn’t mastered. He also helpfully added a couple of stickers to the side windows to ensure there were no further incidents!

So now we were ready to leave Turin and explore further afield. Tomorrow we would head to Cinque Terre and really start to explore Italy.