Eff the Bianconeri (White and Blacks)

I hate Juventus, the Turin team, who are also rivals with Fiorentina. So no, forza for them.

The train to Torino wasn’t bad, it was just under 3 hours. What I liked the most when I first got here, was that isn’t hot or humid like it was in Florence. My hotel was one street away from the train station; you just have to walk down a couple hundred meters. I parked my bags and immediately walked up the center to try and find things to do and get lunch. It’s like a 20 minute walk to the Piazza Reale so it wasn’t too bad at all. I found the McDonalds, and got my usual, since I refuse to eat Mcdonalds in Florence. After McDonalds I wanted to go to the Turin Cathedral. The cathedral itself isn’t very impressive, however this chapel does carry the Shroud of Turin. Although it wasn’t on display, they have a copy of Jesus’s face in a shrine where the Savoy’s used to sit above that you can look it. It was pretty neat looking at the copy of a fake or real shroud of Jesus. After cruising around here, I stopped by the tourist office to pick up a Torino/Piedmonte 2 day card for 22 euros. It gets you into all the museums, and free public transport. With this I headed straight over to the National Museum of the Italian reunification. Torino was the first capital of the Italian republic, so it lays claim to being the site of unification of Italy. It’s basically a museum of Italian history from Napoleon-on of the Piedmonte region. Some of the things on Napoleon’s rule of Italy, the European revolutions of 1848, and stuff. Then they have a lot of paintings, drawings, pamphlets dedicated to Giuseppe Garibaldi, who is like the George Washington of Italy. What is interesting was how the French and Napoleon III were the protectors of Rome against Garibaldi. They had some cool flags, and some cool newspaper/magazine clippings of the unification of Italy. After this museum visit, I decided to check out the Mole Antonelliana and the Museo Nazionale del Cinema. The Mole is interesting because it’s a huge tower a little taller than the Eiffel tower at Las Vegas. You can get an excellent view of Turin, and you can see the mountains, and the former royal palaces on the surrounding hills. The cinema museum was alright, nothing special. They had some cool Italian movie posters of American movies, some picture stills from famous movies, rooms designed from old movie sets, and screenplays from Citizen Kane to the Godfather Part 2. I then walked around trying to find a place for dinner and settled for a self-service place called Brek. The food here was actually quite excellent, they have a lot of selection, and its cafeteria style. Lots of locals were eating here from university to old people. I had a penne pasta and proscruitto cotto di Parma, which was excellent., and a pepsi all for 11.70.

Day 2: I started off my morning a little late due to the comfort of AC and a nice bed, and a comfy pillow. I then went to the Egyptian Museum. This is supposedly one of the largest Egyptian collections in the world so I was interested. You first walk into a bunch of sarcophagus and scrolls from the book of the dead. Then you are led through other Egyptian art like scarab jewelry, steles, mini statues, etc. They had a mummified crocodile among other mummified animals which was neat. Then your done with this floor, and think to yourself that’s it, but you go downstairs to see the big exhibits. The hall with all the statues from Egypt, especially the Ramses II statue. Then they have a Temple of Ellesiya from King Thutmose III which was neat. They also have the tomb of Kha which shows everything they excavated from his tomb which was previously unplundered. Kha was apparently an architect for three royal kings in the New Kingdom. After this, I headed up the street to the Palazzo Madama to the The Civic Museum of Ancient Art. This was four floors of art from the Medieval period to the Gothic/Renaissance to the Baroque, to former Roman watchtower at the top. I breezed through the Renaissance arts since I don’t know any Piedmonte renaissance artists. The medieval floor was kind of cool, they had some neat stonework and roman treasure there. The Roman watchtower gave you a good view of the courtyard, since this is like the main Palazzo in Turin. The Baroque period had some former royal rooms decorate with art, but the main thing was probably the reconstruction of the Senate chambers. This was a cool little exhibit, you could sit in the chambers, listen to famous speeches given, and they even had the seat of the first king of Italy, Victor Emmanuel II. After this I walked around to the new Oriental Art Museum. This museum reminded me of the Norton Simon museum, since they had similar collections. The Indian art was ok, lots of Buddha’s and art dedicated to their deities. Then when I get to the second floor, its Chinese and Japanese, so I tried going to the Japanese art, but the security person made me go through the Chinese art first. I breezed through it, since I don’t really care for Chinese art at all. After this, I went to the Japanese art. They had this scroll or something showing Samurais and stuff. Then they had some crazy looking Buddha’s and the Kongo Rikishi. They had some of those weird Japanese hanging clothes on the next floor along with some Samurai armor. The Himalayan art had some crazy gold/bronze Buddha’s from Thailand to Nepal. You can only see so many Buddha’s before you get bored. And the Islam art is very boring, because it’s all fancy drawn Arabic on pots, fabric, etc . I found a cheap pizza place, don’t know what I ordered, but it was 1.50 euro for a slice. I then went to the real Museum of Ancient Art, the Museum of Antiquities next to an archaeological dig site and the former Roman theatre. This thing had tons of excavated Roman stuff from coins, weapon shards, jewelry, pots, etc. That’s just the dig site room. The other large hall contained statues of former Roman emperors, pots from the Etruscans to the Romans, and other stuff. I enjoyed this Antiquity museum much more than the Ancient Art Museum. I then walked by the Palatine towers, which were part of the Roman gates during the time of Augustus Caesar when the town was called Augusta Taurinorum. After this, I went to the Basilica of Superga. It’s located on a hill overlooking Turin, and you take the bus to the train-funicular that takes you up the hill. You get an awesome view of the Piedmonte region. You get an especially beautiful view of Turin, the Alps, etc. It really made that tower thing in Turin, look like a small normal building from up here. Going up the Cupola in the Church gave you an even better view. It was kind of cloudy so I couldn’t see the Matterhorn, but I could see pretty much all the Alps viewable from Italy. The Basilica is nothing special, but it’s important to Italians because Victor Amadeus II of Savoy prayed here before leading his troops to a surprise victory against the French and gaining the title the King of Sardinia. I then took the tour of the Royal tombs of the House of Savoy. It was conducted in Italian, but I bought a little book in the church for a euro that gives details of the whole Basilica, and we were given a large book thing that detailed the crypt in English. So me, and this French couple with their French note thing version, were pretty much on the tour, but not paying attention. The tour was boring at first, since I had zero idea what the guy was talking about, and I could only read what was in my little book. But going to the royal crypt was pretty awesome. I saw the tombs of Victor Emmanuel II and Umberto I in the Pantheon in Rome, so seeing the rest of the House of Savoy’s tombs was pretty cool. Umberto the 1st, and Carlo Alberto probably had the most elaborate tombs in the crypt. After this, they had a little hike through the park you could take to the train station so I did that to kill time, since the train only comes every hour. Some interesting stuff I saw on the bus back to the center, Castello, was a kid playing soccer with his grandma, and a Bocce court. I thought this was just a mythical game included in the PS3 Move, Sports Champions game, but I actually saw an older couple playing this game in a little Bocce court. This game is pretty much curling without sweeping and bowling and underarm tossing instead. For dinner, I started off at an apertivo place right by the university, and just had their bread/pasta stuff. I was looking for a glass of Moscate, but they didn’t have any, so I settled with a sparkling white wine which was actually alright. After this, I headed back to my favorite spot, Brek. This time I got a Roast Beef+fries and Pepsi for the same price as last night. It was delicious, and I saw three people that were their last night, so I guess some Italians who can’t cook go here for dinner. Then I went to Grom for desert. There is like five groms in Turin, because Grom originated from here. The peach gelato was excellent and one of the best I ever had. Guess I have to compare it to Grom in Florence.