TORINO (Turin) is the starting point for our Italian affair.
And the Italian men's notorious charm is evident from day one when we meet a small group of locals in an Irish bar (of all places).
The only single guy of the group, a ceramic artist who speaks the best English, gives me a rose made from a paper napkin.
As I place the white flower behind my ear, he sees how well the kind and unexpected gesture has been received so he makes one for every woman in the bar.
We don't stay long enough to see if he made any headway in the love department as a result, though!
Our accommodation in a grand old apartment building is more like staying in an Italan family home complete with nonna (grandmother). Somehow with her small grasp of English and our very limited Italian, we hilariously muddle through the check-in and are warmly welcomed in smiles and hand gestures.
From Porta Susa train station to our accommodation, we have already passed weekend markets in a suburban piazza with a layered glass fountain like a stairway to heaven and long busy corsas (main roads).
Torino is a quirky mix of history (dating back to long before Roman times), tradition (with its bullfights), and sophistication (with high-end fashion labels such as Louis Vuitton on Via Roma's main shopping street, for example).
Our walk through town yet again turns to a five-hour discovery tour.
Until now, we had known very little of Torino except for a friend's enthusiastic endorsement a few weeks earlier.
All we know on arrival is that the city is home to the Shroud of Turin, and another kind of religion - football, with fanatical followers of Juventus and Torino clubs.
We didn't realise its million or so residents love their cars - young and old - as the city is the headquarters of automobile manufacturers Fiat, Lancia and Alfa Romeo.
But we soon learn this is a very large and important city on the Po River in northern Italy.
We see that Torino is full of public sculptures and fountains, green parks and massive piazzas (squares), arches and city gates, museums and impressive architecture that ranges from baroque, rococo and neo-classical to Art Nouveau and modern, with grand homes such as Palazzo Madama.
We turn down a street for a closer look at an unusual building that towers over the rest of the skyline wirh an enormous pyramid-like structure leading to the top. This is the Museum of Cinema (Museo Nationale Del Cinema) inside the 168m Mole Antonelliana which has become the symbol of Torino and remains as controversial today as when it was built in the second half of the 19th century.
Lesson of the day: Pizza never tasted as good as it does in Italy.
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