Week 59: Turin

A number of years ago, when a good friend was doing some graduate studying Italy, I visited Turin on a cold, rainy night in late December. We walked around, had some dinner and road the glass elevator up to the top of the Mole Antonelliana to view a cold and wet Turin from above.

Flash forward about eight years, and I am back in Turin, this time with Jason, in the hot, humid summer for about two days of seeing the city in both the light and the dark and again visiting the Mole Antonelliana. I was in the area for work and it looked like a great opportunity for Jason to get his first look at Italy. Since he had never been and my impression, other than the food, is not that rosy, it was important for him to draw his own conclusions.

We booked a place on AirBnB. It was one of the nicest apartments that we had stayed in, though it was a bit of a ways outside the city, so we did a large amount of walking. I had given Jason directions to find places for dinner (which, as I will note again as I come to them, he did admirably), as that, we find, when you don't have a sense for the area, is the hardest part.

We ended up walking to dinner our first night, after we got everything set up with our apartment for the weekend. We had some very good pizza, then walked around the very warm and humid city of Turin for the evening, stopping for a while next to the river to enjoy the lights and the sounds of the city.

Turin at Night

After staying remarkably cool in our room, despite no air conditioning. Air conditioning is generally rare in Europe, especially in private homes. You don't see the warts sicking our the windows nearly as often as you do in the States, even where they could really use it (like Italy). Very few of the companies I have been to have air conditioning, unless it is an internal room--even then, it may only be a fan, instead of full-on AC. (I really don't like AC very much, if it wasn't that obvious...though I admit, I felt a little crazy a couple years ago during that heat wave in New England, where I was working from home and had my feet soaking in ice water to stay cool, since we had no AC in the apartment...as with everything else, its use requires balance.)

For our full day in Turin, we started by going to a huge market at Porta Palazzo (translated link--translation done by Google...), which is purported to be the largest in Europe. It was indeed quite big and had very reasonable prices. Jason bought about 1.5 kilos of cherries for 2 Euro (3.3 lbs for about 3 bucks). While it was a good deal, it did mean that we spent the next couple hours walking around Turin, spitting out cherry stones.

A stall at Europe's largest market

We visited the Royal Palace of Turin, which has some really fantastic marble-work in the entry area. Unfortunately, no pictures are allowed, so though I did get one of two shots before the docent told me to stop (the sign was *very* poorly placed--there was no way I could have seen it unless I was throwing something out in the trash can it was hidden behind), they weren't the best, so I haven't included them here. I did include a rather appropriate statue of Pan, that was snapped before the docent's correction of my conduct. 

Shh! I didn't take this picture at the Royal Palace!

Around lunch time, we came across a portion of a Roman road and an old Roman gate. Turin was founded by the Roman's and dedicated to Augustus, and there was a statue in place to commemorate that fact. Jason was very excited to see this pose of Augustus in statue form, as it was included in many of the Latin texts he used in high school. He had recognized it immediately from our table for lunch at a nearby restaurant.

Jason and a famous Roman

After lunch, we took some time to walk around the city, including some time to walk by one of the rivers. There were many locals also doing the same, and others relaxing in the grass. After a bit of walking, we joined those with more sloth-like pursuits and found a shady spot for a nap. After a bit of a rest, we located some coffee and worked our way back into the heart of the city via public transport.

One thing that much of Italy shares with less western countries I have been to (including, actually, some parts of the US), is the desire/need to use capital investments, for *as long as humanly possible* despite the rather obvious safety or other hazards that may result from the use of the investment. Case in point--in the video below, is the door of a street car opening and closing (it is taken sideways...you may need to tilt your head). My, I am glad my toe, finger or arm did not get in its way!

We successfully disembarked from the street car with all limbs and other body parts attached and headed to the Mole Antonelliana for a ride in their great, glass elevator to get a nice view of the city. The building is home to Italy's Cinema Museum, which we only visited slightly, due to the glass elevator ride. Since we had good weather, the view from the top was quite nice and we spent quite a while looking down into the courtyards and terrasses of Turin. 

At the top of the Mole Antonelliana

For dinner on our second and final night, Jason had again found a well recommended pizza joint. This one, we had to wait about an hour for a table, but they were nice enough to put our names in and tell us what time to come back so we went and had a beer and some aps, then came back and had some of the best pizza I have had, especially at about 10pm. It was truly great.

Thumbs up on the pizza!

That pretty much wrapped up our trip. We took our time getting up the next day and just had sandwiches at a nearby mall for lunch, before working our way to the airport and back to Germany. On the way home, there was a fantastic sunset over the windmills in the farm fields. Italy was a nice diversion--especially for the food--but it was great to be back in Germany.

Yeah, I'll say it: Windmills are Majestic