Our long walk for today, in preparation for Easter lunch tomorrow, was in Parco Stupinigi.  Stupinigi Castle was one of the Royal Hunting Lodges of the Savoy Dynasty and was still in use up until sometime in the early 1900s.  It is now, and has been ever since I first came to Italy, under restoration and houses an art and antique furniture museum.  The place is frickin' enormous and restoration goes by starts and stops as money comes in.  By the time they have finished, they will probably have to start from the beginning again.  There are large walled in grounds that once had the gardens and woods for the inhabitants but this area has been closed to the public since time unknown because of the precarious state of parts of the castle.  Outside of the walls were the hunting grounds that cover almost 4,000 acres!  That's where we walked today.  No need to say that we didn't cover it all.  The land is dotted with farms that cultivate parts of the property.  There are also forested areas that are tree farms and areas that are left wild.  Everywhere is crisscrossed with paths and dirt roads where people bike and ride horses and take very happy dogs on walks.  The only problem is that it is so damned flat and unvaried.  We walked and walked and walked but didn't see anything more thrilling than a bunch of logged woods beside fields of tiny new trees.  Two days til London!  xxoo me

farm - fields

new trees