Turin to Venice: Part 1 Great Continental Railway Journeys

I'm embarking on a new railway adventure

that will take me across the heart of Europe.

I'll be using this, my Bradshaw's Continental Railway Guide

dated 1913,

which opened up an exotic world of foreign travel for the British tourist.

It told travellers where to go, what to see

and how to navigate the thousands of miles of tracks criss-crossing the continent.

Now, a century later, I'm using my copy

to reveal an era of great optimism and energy,

where technology, industry, science and the arts were flourishing.

I want to rediscover that lost Europe

that in 1913 couldn't know

that its way of life would shortly be swept aside by the advent of war.

This new journey occurs in one of my favourite countries - Italy.

La Bella Italia.

I'll be crossing its northern plain

and with my Bradshaw's, hoping to find out how things stood

on the eve of the First World War

in this region of factories, Fiats, fashion and infatuation.

My Italian travels begin in the Piedmont region,

where I will visit the city of Turin,

from where I'll travel into Lombardy to another major northern city, Milan.

Away from the urban sprawls,

Como and its famous Lake will be my third stop

before I visit the romantic city of Verona.

The journey will end in the east, on the islands of Venice.

I explore some of the great passions of Italy,

from Milan's material magic...

Being measured for a suit in Italy is more like being measured for a body cast.

-Cinquanta cinque.

-Mm-hm.

..to the extraordinary diversity of Italian cookery.

That looks a bit like a Ravioli?

-Agnolotti!

-Sorry.

-Agnolotti del plin!

-Yeah, yeah, it's different.

And on the Grand Canal,

I hear about the amorous conquests of Venice's most famous son.

Casanova loved women. He only had a 130 lovers.

-That's extremely moderate!

-Absolutely.

Viva Italia!

My first stop will be Turin - Torino in Italian.

Bradshaw says that from 1860 to 1865 it was the capital of the Kingdom of Italy.

I'd like to know how the city held that privileged position

and why it hugged the limelight for so short a period.

When Bradshaw's guide was written in 1913,

Italy was still a very young country.

Until just a few decades earlier,

Turin's kingdom of Piedmont existed alongside a jumble of states

controlled by competing European superpowers.

One of the busiest stations in Italy,

Turin's Stazione Centrale would have been the Edwardian traveller's first major stop in Italy.

Construction began in 1861, a crucial date in Italy's history.

This magnificent chamber

with its paintings and mirrors and chandeliers

was the waiting room for the royal family of Italy.

And their majesties then just had the briefest of excursions

from here to their waiting train.

I sometimes get a little bit excited about using the first class lounge at Paddington,

where you get a free cup of coffee and a biscuit.

But it's not just royalty who are catered for in this station.

There's also a plaque honouring British railway pioneers

Giorgio and Roberto Stephenson,

"who perfected the locomotive,

"opening new trade routes to the advantage of the brotherhood of peoples."

Turin has been at the heart of Italian industry

since my Bradshaw's was published,

so I'm curious to find out

how much of the old city centre described in my trusty guide remains.

This lovely square is called the Piazza Castello,

named after the sturdy castle,

and Bradshaw's refers to the Palazzo Madama

and the royal palace, the Palazzo Reale,

which apparently dates from 1646.

This is my first visit to Torino

and I'd been expecting a city of factory chimneys

and to find so much elegance and history is a very pleasant surprise.

Located on the Po river at the foot of the Alps,

Turin is a city with ancient roots.

But it's known for one thing above all -

it's the cradle of Italian liberty.

Its first prime minister was Count Camillo di Cavour,

who was an architect of the unification of Italy.

To find out more, I'm meeting historian Silvia Cavicchioli.

Who was Count Cavour?

Cavour was one of the most important Italian politicians during the 19th century.

He was the leader of the Liberal Party

and at the beginning he just wanted to modernise the kingdom.

Then he came to idea of a single unified great state

and a very modern state.

You have to know that when he was young he travelled a lot

and he made many journeys across Europe.

He was very interested in the British rail system.

He sounds like my kind of man.

I know that you are very interested in railways

and in fact, Cavour, he was amazed by the speed of this travel.

He realised that the railways were very important

in the modernisation of a country, of course,

and to overcome the barriers between people.

It's very interesting.

I often think about the social effects of the railways.

But here we are talking about the political effects of the railways as well.

Cavour's promotion of the railways

brought him to the attention of the British,

who sent envoy Sir James Hudson to Piedmont.

He and Cavour became very close friends.

The plaque suggests that Hudson was "a maker of Italian unification."

Why would the British be interested in Italian unification?

Because Great Britain wanted a stable and constitutional ally

in the southern part of Europe.

They wanted to play a role in the development of the industrialisation of Italy.

The British wanted to sell the Italians railways, that's what it was.

Ah, yes, and in fact after unification,

Great Britain produced 80% of the railway machinery

and steam engines for Italy.

Britain was keen to have an ally in southern Europe

and was the first of the Great Powers to acknowledge the Kingdom of Italy,

actively undermining French influence in the peninsula.

Well, Michael, for you as a former politician,

it would be interested to know

that we are in front of Carignano Palace.

And this was the very building which housed the first Italian parliament.

On the 17th March 1861,

King Victor Emanuel II ceased to be the King of Piedmont

and became the King of all Italy.

Well, Cavour must have been delighted to see that.

Yes, he was very happy.

But the pity was that he died just a few weeks after that memorable day.

Well, at least he lived to see the Kingdom of Italy proclaimed.

Cavour was prime minister of Italy for just two months.

After his death, Turin remained the capital for only four years.

The title passed first to Florence

and then finally to Rome in 1870.

In time, Cavour's dream of a modern, industrialised Italy

would be realised

and one company became a driving force.

Founded in 1899, the Fabrica Italiana Automobili Torino, or Fiat,

went on to produce an icon of Italian car manufacture.

And here it is the Cinquecento!

-Bella machina!

-Fabulosa di lei!

Fabulous indeed!

En route, we pass their first factory.

Questa la vecchia fabrica della Fiat.

Ah! This is the old Fiat factory.

Very small in those days.

This pioneering company exploded in size in the early 20th century.

Founded by Giovanni Agnelli, it went on to construct an icon of modernism -

the first Futurist building in Italy the Lingotto.

I'm driving onto the roof of this former factory

to meet the head of the company archive, Maurizio Torchio.

Grazie. Arrivederci.

-Maurizio.

-Hi, Michael. Welcome.

This is an amazing building! Tell me about it.

The first director of this building used to say

that the perfect plant has to be a concrete dress around the productive process.

And this has to conceal as little as possible of the flow of the materials.

You can imagine it as a kind of an Italian dress.

It is very, very beautiful. What does the process consist of here?

I mean, the raw materials arrived at the bottom

and then they started to go round and round, up and up,

until here on the rooftop, on the test track,

arrived the final product.

The cars were tested here and then again they would go down

and they would go to the railway to be delivered to the customers.

Ah! So even cars had to travel then by railway to be delivered!

Absolutely!

At the time of Bradshaw's guide,

the company was just one of many small car manufacturers in Turin.

It was common in Italy and most of all in Turin

to get into this new, marvellous business of making cars.

I mean, the car industry was absolutely the technology of the future

and at the time it was something like the internet bubble.

In 1913, the company was expanding at a rapid rate.

As the demand for vehicles exploded with the advent of the First World War,

the workforce increased massively from 4,000 in 1914

to 40,000 in 1918.

What happened to Fiat during World War I?

If this plant was built, it's because of World War I.

I mean, during World War I, finally Fiat sold many, many trucks.

And with the profits from the war,

made possible to create a new plant,

styled after the way plants were built in the United States.

Though Britain was the first industrial nation,

the Italians were modernists,

adopting the latest ideas on industrial efficiency from America.

And thereafter, Fiat gets into all sorts of things, doesn't it?

I mean, for example, in Britain we're very well aware

that we have trains, Pendolinos, that are made by Fiat.

In the '70s, some countries hadn't the possibilities to invest.

So they decided, well, maybe if we create trains that can tilt

it will go faster in the existing railways

and we didn't need to create new infrastructure

and that's actually the Pendolino -

something that permits higher velocity on traditional railways.

And that is exactly the case with the United Kingdom.

To top off my adventure at the Lingotto factory,

I'm invited to carry out a test drive on this historic track.

This is where, famously, Michael Caine and others drove cars round and round

in that film The Italian Job

and I just hope that as I go round I don't blow the bloody doors off!

MUSIC: # "Theme from the Italian Job"

OK!

# This is a self-preservation society

# This is a self-preservation society

# Gotta get a bloomin' move on

# Babadab-babadabadab-bab-ba

# Jump in the jam jar Gotta get straight Hurry up mate, don't wanna be late

# How's your father? Gotta get a bloomin' move on. #

Cars may have been a twentieth century passion for Italians

but the country's love affair with food dates back to the Roman Empire and before.

Edwardian visitors to Turin would have had their taste buds titillated

by new, exciting flavours.

My stomach has steered me to a traditional Piedmontese restaurant,

La Taverna di Fra Fiusch, in the hills above Turin.

Chef Ugo Fontanone has kindly invited me to join him in his kitchen.

-Hello!

-Oh, hello.

-Michael.

-Ugo.

-Ugo. Ugo.

So Ugo is obviously making pasta. What sort of pasta is he making?

Well, the chef is making agnolotti del plin.

-Would it be possible to have a taste this already?

-Yes, it's very good.

Is it already good?

Mm. It is. A lovely mixture of meats and vegetables.

Mm. That's a great taste.

That looks a bit like a ravioli.

-Agnolotti!

-Sorry.

-Agneootti del plin!

-Yeah, yeah. It's different.

-Plin!

-Ah! There's his plin.

-That's the thing.

-May I have a go? Si, si.

-Prego.

So I have to take one teaspoon...

-Cosi?

-OK, perfect.

Perfect? He does speak English! I knew it!

-Me no speak English!

-He doesn't speak English.

Right, so now, Ugo, I should cut, should I?

-L'acqua.

-Little bit of water on there with what looks like a paint brush.

-And now...

-Roll over.

-All the way over? Cosi?

-Er... No.

-No, no, no.

-Sorry. Cosi.

-Ah! Cosi.

OK. And now the all-important pinch! Like this.

Plin. Cosi e cosi.

It's all in the technique of these fingers and thumbs.

Look at that.

And now I cut along here. Look at that lovely wiggly line it leaves.

And now I cut across here.

-Quasi perfetto.

-Quasi perfetto, yes.

-Wonderful.

Yes almost perfect but not quite perfect.

In fact, look - that is decidedly wonky or asymmetrical.

And now what do you do next?

THEY SPEAK ITALIAN

And then we cook them and then we eat them.

That sounds a very good idea. Grazie tanti! Thank you so much.

-Arrivederci.

-Arrivederci.

What a wonderful view! And what a spread of food!

-Is this all from Piedmont?

-Yeah, it is.

So I recognise these. These are the agnolotti.

Exactly, the one you made.

These local specialities include a raw veal dish, carne cruda,

finanziera, a dish of offal,

vitello tonnato - veal with tuna sauce -

and this bagna cauda dip.

-Bon appetito!

-Grazie.

As I tuck into this dish of delicious Piedmontese tripe,

it's a reminder that whilst Italy has been politically united,

it's still incredibly varied in terms of culture and food.

And in this mountainous region I've been offered mountains to eat!

A new day and I'm following in the tracks of Edwardian train travellers

across Northern Italy

and I'm riding on a commuter service from Turin to Milan.

THEY SPEAK ITALIAN

Un'espresso. Grazie.

Isn't that lovely? My espresso made freshly in the machine.

You get a lot of businessmen on this line?

Yes, at rush hour there are many businessmen heading into Milan.

-Milan is still the centre of business?

-Yes, but it's fashion of course.

-Fashion?

-Yeah, true.

-You look very smart yourself.

-Yeah?

-Very nice uniform.

-You, too.

-Thank you very much.

-You're welcome.

-Cheers!

-Cheers.

Only in Italy would you see an espresso machine on the refreshments trolley!

This magnificent Red Arrow Italian train

is taking me to Milan,

which Bradshaw's tells me is "the capital of Lombardy,

"the most important commercial centre of Italy.

"The silk trade is the largest in Europe

"and the manufacture of woollen goods and machinery

"are prominent industries."

Well, I'm wearing a little bit of Italian tailoring myself

and I'm more than happy to exchange fashion tips with the Milanese.

After the fall of the Roman Empire,

Milan was ruled by a succession of foreign powers,

including Spain, Austria and France,

until the Risorgimento made it part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861.

This Milan station is named after Giuseppe Garibaldi,

the 19th century revolutionary, whose rebellion in Sicily

and intrepid march into the peninsula

freed vast tracts of Italy from foreign rule.

It made him a cult figure, both nationally and internationally.

Garibaldi visited the UK in 1860 to thank Britain for its support

during the struggle for liberation.

Viewed as a dashing, romantic hero,

he drew such massive crowds that he incurred Queen Victoria's displeasure,

perhaps because his popularity outstripped hers.

As I make my way into the centre of Milan,

there's no doubt that the Piazza del Duomo is the heart of the city.

Bradshaw's quite rightly has long paragraphs

about the cathedral of Milan, which it tells me was started in 1386.

I think of it as being shaped like a child's drawing of a house.

In the corners figures support the building

as though they were still helping to build it.

It's recently been restored

and we now see the marble as white and pink and brown and translucent

and we have a view of the cathedral that people probably haven't enjoyed for centuries.

Bradshaw's tells me that on the north side of the Piazza is

the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, a handsome arcade.

Yes - for beautiful people.

For Milan is the global capital of fashion.

Completed in 1877,

this is one of the world's oldest shopping arcades.

Its towering structure and wonderfully ornate details reflect

the city's long-held obsession with fashion and beauty.

Here I'm meeting Lucia Mantero,

the director of a century-old, family-run silk manufacturer,

to find out more about Milanese style.

Why do Milanese have a sense of style?

We are lucky because first of all we are in a very beautiful country

and moreover we are really next to very, very cities -

first of all Venice and then Turin as well.

So I think it is also due to this that they really developed

a little bit of really... a sense of beauty

that then they put into the fabrics and then in the clothes.

At the time of my guidebook, 1913, what was happening in Milan?

Very important things. First of all, many companies started.

And one of these absolutely is Prada.

They started producing leather goods first

and they open in 1913 a store in Milan,

that was something, I think, very, very important for that day.

This blossoming Milanese fashion business

drew wealthy Edwardians here

who wanted the finest clothing that money could buy.

Over the years, Milan has become the birthplace of global fashion labels

like Dolce & Gabbana and Versace.

And while I'm here, I really should experience Milan's material magic first-hand.

On Lucia's recommendation,

I'm visiting a traditional Milanese gentleman's tailor, Caraceni.

-Ah, buongiorno.

-Mi chiamo Michael.

-Carlo Andreacchio.

-Carlo.

-Buongiorno. Nice to meet you.

-Very nice to meet you.

I find you with some lovely cloths.

I've been learning about the Italian fashion industry.

These look very, very beautiful.

-Yes, these come from England.

-From England!

Yes, we use a lot of English fabric.

-This is from Huddersfield.

-Made in Huddersfield, England.

-Yes.

Do you make the entire suit from English cloth?

No, it's a mixture, because inside we put the Italian silk.

What is the Italian style? I see for example your jacket.

Very slimly tailored. Is that the key to it?

Yes, this is the Italian style but depend on your measurements.

As we head into the fitting room,

it's clear that Massimiliano is interested in more than just my measurements.

HE SPEAKS ITALIAN

He wants to know what my profession is.

Well, I travel by train a great deal

and I carry this book - I carry it like that, I carry it like that, and I carry it like that.

-And I always need room for my passport.

-Importante.

-OK.

HE SPEAKS ITALIAN

Si, si.

Jacket has to be off for measuring purposes.

Massimiliano takes pride in making suits for those with challenging professions,

for example, musicians and conductors.

It's very important that he should feel me

because he needs to feel how these muscles work

and whether the shoulder is going in at this point

or whether it's stretched back.

I'm afraid in my case it's pushing in a little bit.

They take 26 measurements for a suit.

With these measurements we can imagine your body.

And some of the numbers are not very flattering.

-Trenta due.

-32 round there. My goodness. Who would have guessed that?

Cinquanta. Setantta sei.

I never remember having this particular measurement here

taken by an English tailor.

No, this is our particular measurement.

Settantotto.

78.

Being measured for a suit in Italy is more like being measured for a body cast!

Every single contour has been accounted for.

-Cinquanta cinque.

-Mm-hm.

Now, just before we get too involved here, I need to ask you about price.

What might this cost me?

THEY SPEAK ITALIAN

From 5,400 euros upwards.

-And what does it get to?

-Venticinque mille massimo, massimo.

Up to 25,000. Mm.

Would it be all right if you just keep my measurements on file

and I maybe I'll come back when I'm a little richer?

The burgeoning Milanese fashion business of the early 20th century

was just one attraction of Milan.

Another was the opera.

The British King Edward VII was a keen opera goer

and the educated Edwardian traveller followed suit.

Sadly I don't have tickets to La Scala,

so I'm on the tram to find the next best thing.

One of the great tourist attractions of Milan is its old trams.

This one dates from 1928 and has been running ever since.

It's not that Milan can't afford new ones

but the Milanese love the old trams and I don't blame them!

For my overnight stay, Bradshaw's mentions the Grand Hotel of Milan near La Scala Opera House

and "frequented by the elite of English and American society."

I must join them.

Hello.

OK, so, Mr Portillo, this is your room. The Verdi's apartment.

It's a beautiful apartment.

Is it called the Verdi suite because La Scala is so close by?

No, it's called Verdi's apartment because he lived here for 27 years.

-He lived in a hotel!

-Exactly!

We used to consider him our first corporate account.

Did he write any music here?

-Yes, he wrote the entire Falstaff right at this desk.

-How fantastic!

Giuseppe Verdi was a prolific composer

who wrote some of the most beloved operas in the repertoire,

including Aida, La Traviata and Nabucco,

which features the famous Chorus Of The Hebrew slaves.

This was adopted as the anthem of Italian liberation

and Verdi became a hero

and was elected as a member of the new parliament of a united Italy.

There is another interesting story about Otello.

The opera was successful

and once Maestro Verdi and the tenor Tamagno went back to the room,

people was crowding from outside,

so Verdi told to the tenor Tamagno "Sing to the crowd."

-And, of course, no orchestra, unaccompanied, he sang to the crowd.

-Exactly.

MUSIC: TENOR SINGING ARIA

On the second part of my journey through Italy,

I'll find out how the Edwardian adventurer discovered

a love of the high life.

A traveller with my Bradshaw's guide in 1913 could have gone up in a plane

-and seen this wonderful view?

-Absolutely.

I follow a star-crossed trail of Shakespearean life.

Eleanora! Eleanora!

Hello, Michael! Come up and join me!

And on the Grand Canal, I hear about the amorous conquests of Venice's most famous son.

Casanova loved women. He only had a 130 lovers.

-That's extremely moderate!

-Absolutely.