Emily flew in on Friday night and I went to Piazzale Roma to meet her after her bus got to Venice. I was actually just in the city because that day I went on a VIU trip out to the Veneto countryside to see a villa designed by Andrea Palladio as well as the rolling mountains of Valdobbiadene, right at the foot of the Dolomiti (Dolomite Mountains), a region really important for the production of prosecco, the Italian version of Champagne.
So, Emily and I walked from the Piazzale to the vaporetto station at San Zaccaria. We stopped briefly at Campo Santa Margherita and I introduced her to a few of my VIU friends -- these were all BC people actually. We came to San Servolo at about 12:45 AM. After arranging some things in my backpack and setting up our travel plans for the morning, we went to sleep -- I gave Emily my bed for the night because she was getting over a cold -- and I crashed on one of the other beds in the room since all of my roommates were traveling.
In the morning we took the train to Torino, located in western Italy in the region known as Piemonte. Our train was very crowded since everyone was going to visit their family for Easter. Emily and I didn't sit together because our seats were separate. I don't know how that happened, but I just read the paper and did some course reading. We arrived in Torino in the early afternoon. We got some lunch at the train station (which was amazing! Remember, this is where they had the olympics only three years ago, so of course everything is going to be in good shape). We walked to our hostel, which was in Southwest Torino. The man there was explaining everything to Emily because she booked the hostel, and then I asked a little question in Italian and he responded with something like, "You speak Italian!? Why didn't you say so in the first place? My English is barely enough, but there is a much easier way!" He explained a lot of interesting things about Torino for us. First, he told us Torino is where chocolate was invented. I was a little skeptical at first because I heard that in Bologna from my friends, and I believe them... however I will explain my reaction after trying the Torinese chocolate later. It left me speechless.
Emily and I explored the center of Torino, known for its central Piazza Castello, where the Palazzo Reale is (that's the royal palace). Also I should point out that Torino's architecture seemed very French to me, and I noticed that as soon as I got there -- wide streets, little iron balconies, that kind of thing. It makes sense, too, because Torino is so close to France. Anyway, a really famous road leads east from Piazza Castello, that's the Via Po, leading toward the Po River. On this road, the hostel manager explained, are a lot of caffes and small restaurants that specialize in aperitivi and buffets (which is perhaps the most tipical Torinese way to eat dinner).
Before strolling down the Via Po, Emily and I went to the Museo Egizio, the Egyptian Museum of Torino. Seems random, but it's actually the most important museum of Egyptian Artifacts after the one in Cairo. Yes, that's right British Museum, I said it. Anyway, why Torino? You'll remember that Napoleon dominated Italy for a while, right? And this Frenchified Italian city must have seemed a good place for some of the artifacts that Emperor Bonaparte ahem, stole from Egypt. The gallery also contains a lot of other artifacts from the collections of Italians who just really love Egyptian stuff. Inside the museum, which was arranged in some places chronologically and in some places thematically, there were all the things you'd expect -- statues of gods and rulers (dramatically displayed in a dark room with mirrors on the sides), papyrus documents like the Book of the Dead, artifacts buried with the dead, and of course, mummies.
There was also a significant amount of artifacts that showed the interaction between the Roman Empire and Egypt. The British Museum collection was definitely comparable, but this was a whole museum on Egypt, whereas the British Museum focuses on other things, has a broader focus. I really wanted to go to this museum although Emily had seen the Egyptian collection in London a few times. But this was one of the compromises we made -- actually, it turned out that I planned Torino and Genova and Emily planned Pisa and Roma.So after the Museo Egizio, we walked around, down the Via Po, etc. I have to mention that it was raining, which was a little sad, but it was still really exciting to be there. We declined the buffets on Via Po in favor of restaurants in the old town, and we actually found a really good one that accepted my meal vouchers. This was my favorite meal of the whole trip. That's not to say the others weren't as good, but I just really loved the feel of the place and the food, and of course the company! I ordered the asparagus risotto with a side of eggplant. Since it's getting warm outside, I'm starting to make the change to white wine (which usually makes me cold when I drink it during the winter). Emily ordered one of the special pizze of the house.
The next day was Easter! So what better way (and both of us agreed on this) to celebrate than to go to mass in the Duomo of Torino? San Giovanni Battista, or St. John the Baptist, was the name of the church. After getting a caffe' on Via Po, we walked to the Duomo and took a look around inside before the service began. It wasn't in plain sight, but the Shroud of Torino is traditionally kept in this church. It was held in a special box in its own chapel during the Holy Week, I believe, to keep people from taking pictures of it during random hours or the Via Crucis (Stations of the Cross). The mass started at 11. I was actually really surprised at how much I could understand during the mass, which was just about everything. The music was incredible. However, and it may have been because there were bomb attacks on the church, it was sparse and plain inside. This didn't stop us from enjoying it -- and I had fun explaining the whole communion thing to Emily, that is, there isn't such thing as a line in Italy.
After church we went to a restaurant on the Via Po for the Easter buffet, something I haven't done in years but used to do quite frequently, and I think Emily did the same. The food was delicious and plentiful, perfect for Easter brunch. An hour or so later we walked down Via Giuseppe Verdi to the Mole Antonelliana, which is the huge tower in Torino that was actually appropriated artistically to create the symbol of the 2006 Olympic Winter Games. It was first
built as a Jewish synagogue, but that project ran out of money. The building was bought and finished by the state as office space, only later to be bought by a private organization headed by a cinema-loving woman who created in 2000 the Museo del Cinema Nazionale, that is, the National Film Museum.Inside the film museum, you find all kinds of props and costumes from movies, and not just Italian ones. Around the main level, there is a square corridor that takes you through many different genres of film. For example, Silent Italian Epics like Cabiria, movies about love, comedies, science-fiction, westerns, movies with mirrors. These rooms were designed with the genre in mind, for example, the western room looked like a bar room during a brawl, and there was a famous statue of a god in the Cabiria room.
In the center of the main room was a vertical elevator shaft to the top, that was something that was different and cost a little more but offered an aerial view of Torino. But the Torino Museo del Cinema was incredible! The pathway wound upstairs through an exhibit of Rudolph Valentino, silent actor extroardinaire. There were also rooms displaying props and costumes, as well as pages of storyboards and scripts of famous films. There was the costume worn by Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia, and a little tag next to it that said, "I loved wearing it; it was so comfortable, so breatheable! I was actually thinking that I may have been turning into a transvestite."
After the Museo del Cinema, we followed the advice of the man at the tourism information desk, and walked west through the northern corner of the Giardini Reali to a little square where a little caffe' is. This place, we were told, is famous for its Bicerin, which is a famous drink in Torino that has coffee, chocolate and a little bit of liquor. So Emily and I enjoyed our Bicerin and then took the bus south to check out the Parco Olimpico, the Olympic Park. There were a lot of fathers and sons playing soccer on the lawn, but the actual sports complex was fairly abandoned. The stadium is used for professional soccer in Italy, and the hockey rink, which is right next door, is used for Torino's hockey team (which I wish was still playing, but oh well).
We got our last dinner in Torino, but not before trying some of the famous cioccolato torinese. It was sooo good! We each got one milk chocolate and one dark chocolate egg. My favorite was the dark, of course. Something interesting happened at dinner (and this is kind of a long story but I want to explain it). First, I should note that since it was Easter night, there were not many restaurants open, and while the place we went normally would accept my vouchers, they didn't this time. Anyway, when the waitress came up when we were finished eating, she asked if we wanted dessert. I said, "Crediamo di no," which I thought meant "We don't believe so," but she didn't understand what I said. I got across later that no, we didn't want anything. However, when I talked to the nice man at our hostel, he told us that you would only say "Credo di si" or "Credo di no" if it's something you think but are not sure about. In our context, I really told the waitress "We're guessing no." See how it seems an inadequate response?
Lastly, I met the guy I was sharing a room with in the hostel in Torino. His name was Tsing, he was from Hong Kong originally but is studying architecture in London. We woke up at the same time exactly on Monday morning. Where are you going, I asked, and he responded, "Genova." The same destination as me and Emily!
I'll continue this story in installments.
Andrew
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