got to go again

Stopover: Torino

Stopover: Torino

Making a stop in Torino, elegant and almost completely devoid of tourist traffic, was definitely not a bad idea. The city center is calm and quiet, at least as quiet as it gets in Italy. Once a capital it looks as one: the trams float along the grand Via del Po and make cute little ambushes under the archways of the crossing streets, trying to jump on careless tourists when they are not looking.

Pizza al taglio for a quick and efficient lunch, some fruit, gelato and coffee were included in the program, so that eventually everyone was happy by the time we walked up to the Royal Palace, which is where I was reminded of the Torino Shroud. Seeing it was on the list since forever, but I have to confess that I completely forgot about it being in Torino until Lydia mentioned it to me – and right on time, too. “Seeing” is a vague notion though. What you see is a pretty draping covering a supposedly silver chest supposedly containing the famous relic. Having faith is really at the basis of Christian religion, though, so – yes, we have in fact visited the Shroud. Check!

A little tour through the public part of the park around the palace, after seeing the Palatino Portico – one of the Roman ruins, of which, I must say, I am fed up completely by now. Fed up and sick to my stomach. Somehow it is more fascinating to me not that these very bricks were laid by some masons a couple of thousand years ago (although, yes, if you are looking for an example of accomplished craftsmen, look no further – they were definitely paying attention at the school of masonry), but rather that the portico (gate) is over a street which was here already then and probably way before then. The old patterns of life under this same Sun becoming modern patterns without much change, essentially – that’s what I try to think of when I look at piles of old red bricks or at your average street in Rome where new houses that people live in now with hot water, gas and flush toilets (hopefully) are built directly on top of some older houses that fell apart generations ago, which had in turn been built directly on top of some even older basements, who knows how many layers down. Anyway, enough with the long sentences, moving on. A little trip to the one of the domes drawing Torino’s characteristic skyline: once conceived as a synagogue, Mole Antonelliana got struck and partially destroyed by a lightning storm before it was completed, which is when it was decided to build it even taller, which even made it world’s tallest building for some short while…



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