The first few days we were back inTicino, I had to focus on work. Stuff had piled up while I was away and it wasn’t clear how much I had before me. Most importantly, I had to find a new property manager. This required getting recommendations and then meeting new people. Also, I find that if I am around, guests have questions. These are usually the small questions they would never bother to call someone about. But, if I am there, they come up. Questions and requests lead to more work. First, I have to address the issue at hand. Then I have to design some system so the issue doesn’t arise when I am gone, or, if it does, that there is some response in place. I don’t mind the work, but the timing was unfortunate as it meant that Analyn and I were bound to the house for some time.
I had cooked up a scheme to go to Umbria. Analyn favorite wine comes from a small town there and they don’t export. Plus, Marianne had been talking about Orvietto, which is close by. I thought we could see both. However, I mistook my idea for Analyn’s and she informed me there were other things she preferred to see – Torino and Alps were among them. We consulted our handy dandy internet and found out the weather would be clear in the mountains over the weekend, and that we could get a steal on a hotel room in Torino Wednesday night. Guess what we did?
Torino is only a couple hours drive but I had never been there. I’m not so enamored of Milano, much to Analyn’s consternation, so Torino was a good choice. I knew two main facts about the city: it hosted the winter Olympics a few years ago, and it’s the fourth largest Italian city. Good enough for me!
Luciano’s navigation system led us right to our hotel with nary a misstep. Analyn was worried as we entered town because there was a lot of graffiti. I reminded her graffiti was an Italian word and that everything would be great soon. Mostly I was worried about the jerk on the right edging me out and the bastard on the left cutting me off. Big Italian city driving.
The hotel was perfectly nice and well worth the 100€. It was certainly not worth the 350€ they usually charge. Just don't fall in the shower.
We were right on the main artery separating old town from new town. We mostly walked around that day, getting a feel for the city. It was quite nice, prettier than Milano, but, let’s be honest, it was no Roma or Firenze. But, then again, how many places are? If you said two, then you are correct. If you said three and included Paris, you are also correct.
We grabbed some quick panini and reveled in the reasonable prices. Maybe they were about 3€ each and a .5L bottle of soda was like 2€. After Scandinavia and Switzerland, it was like the world was on sale. We saw the castle, the palace, the big fountains, the fancy shopping arcades (portici), and the less fancy arcades. We criss-crossed the entire citta vecchia and settled into a big empty square for dinner. I forgot what we had, but it was darn good, and seemingly cheap, especially spread out over antipasti, primi and secondi over nearly two hours.
Wednesday we tackled our specific goals. I wanted to see the Museum of Cinema and Analyn wanted to see this shroud thing. It’s supposedly the shroud in which Jesus was buried (I have my doubts) that is in the St. John the Baptist church in Torino. We had a hard time finding the church, and even a harder time finding the shroud. It seemed like there should be a line or something somewhere. We kept walking around the appropriate piazza, hoping to see a sign – more a man-made sign, but a divine sign would have helped too. Finally, frustrated, I asked a clerk at a museum. She told us the shroud was hidden and could only come out when the Pope said so – which was every ten years or so. Some kind of shroud I thought! It’s tough being Catholic. Analyn was really disappointed and we both wondered why it had never been mentioned that the shroud was not open to the public. Maybe they just keep it enshrouded in mystery.
The Museum did Cinema National was much more accessible. It’s located in the Mole something or other, the tallest brick building in the world. First we took a glass elevator to the top of the tower so we could have a good view of the city. The tower is more like a tall, skinny pyramid and the elevator went right up the middle – at a pretty good rate. It was actually kind of scary to be hurtling towards the pointed roof only to shoot through to the sunlight and observation platform above.
The view was outstanding. You can see the pictures. But the highlight of the adventure was a little boy who wore a shirt that said Standfor. I had to have a picture so Analyn tried to take one surreptitiously. But, by the fifth or sixth attempt, the boy and his friends were on to it and his friends continued to tease him by referring to Analyn as his Chinese girlfriend. Ironically, there was a woman also in line who I really think was Chinese. In fact, she probably still is.
The cinema museum was pretty good. The first floor was about the mechanical history and basis of cinema: moving images, projected lights, etc. The next floor walked the visitor through the various stages of making a film, using examples and exhibits from famous films as well as a dummy film they made on site. If you geek out about certain classic films, it was pretty interesting, but I can’t remember any of it now. The final floor had movie posters, which was amazing. They were mostly European films but a few classic and contemporary Hollywood films, and three Kurosawa films – mostly in Italian, but some in French, German and English. There was a walkway that went up the inside of the pyramid that hosted the primary exhibit: photos of Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn. I skipped that part.
Those efforts took most of the day, so we piled back into Luciano and drove back home since we had another big travel day ahead of us on Friday. We managed to stop in Cannobio on Lago Maggiore, on the Italian side, before we got home. Much to Analyn's joy, there was a wine-tasting event at the Lungolago.
We grabbed some quick panini and reveled in the reasonable prices. Maybe they were about 3€ each and a .5L bottle of soda was like 2€. After Scandinavia and Switzerland, it was like the world was on sale. We saw the castle, the palace, the big fountains, the fancy shopping arcades (portici), and the less fancy arcades. We criss-crossed the entire citta vecchia and settled into a big empty square for dinner. I forgot what we had, but it was darn good, and seemingly cheap, especially spread out over antipasti, primi and secondi over nearly two hours.
Wednesday we tackled our specific goals. I wanted to see the Museum of Cinema and Analyn wanted to see this shroud thing. It’s supposedly the shroud in which Jesus was buried (I have my doubts) that is in the St. John the Baptist church in Torino. We had a hard time finding the church, and even a harder time finding the shroud. It seemed like there should be a line or something somewhere. We kept walking around the appropriate piazza, hoping to see a sign – more a man-made sign, but a divine sign would have helped too. Finally, frustrated, I asked a clerk at a museum. She told us the shroud was hidden and could only come out when the Pope said so – which was every ten years or so. Some kind of shroud I thought! It’s tough being Catholic. Analyn was really disappointed and we both wondered why it had never been mentioned that the shroud was not open to the public. Maybe they just keep it enshrouded in mystery.
The Museum did Cinema National was much more accessible. It’s located in the Mole something or other, the tallest brick building in the world. First we took a glass elevator to the top of the tower so we could have a good view of the city. The tower is more like a tall, skinny pyramid and the elevator went right up the middle – at a pretty good rate. It was actually kind of scary to be hurtling towards the pointed roof only to shoot through to the sunlight and observation platform above.
The view was outstanding. You can see the pictures. But the highlight of the adventure was a little boy who wore a shirt that said Standfor. I had to have a picture so Analyn tried to take one surreptitiously. But, by the fifth or sixth attempt, the boy and his friends were on to it and his friends continued to tease him by referring to Analyn as his Chinese girlfriend. Ironically, there was a woman also in line who I really think was Chinese. In fact, she probably still is.
The cinema museum was pretty good. The first floor was about the mechanical history and basis of cinema: moving images, projected lights, etc. The next floor walked the visitor through the various stages of making a film, using examples and exhibits from famous films as well as a dummy film they made on site. If you geek out about certain classic films, it was pretty interesting, but I can’t remember any of it now. The final floor had movie posters, which was amazing. They were mostly European films but a few classic and contemporary Hollywood films, and three Kurosawa films – mostly in Italian, but some in French, German and English. There was a walkway that went up the inside of the pyramid that hosted the primary exhibit: photos of Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn. I skipped that part.
Those efforts took most of the day, so we piled back into Luciano and drove back home since we had another big travel day ahead of us on Friday. We managed to stop in Cannobio on Lago Maggiore, on the Italian side, before we got home. Much to Analyn's joy, there was a wine-tasting event at the Lungolago.
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