Torino, Italia! Prego!

Buon giorno!

Last weekend, Sciences-Po gave us students a nice little study break, so as far as I know, every one of my friends took the opportunity to travel around Europe.
Et moi? I went to Torino, Italia!!! :D

At first I wasn't going to go, but at almost the last minute I found a promotion online for round-trip train tickets, so that obviously changed my mind. But there was a small amount of drama the day I was supposed to leave: since I ordered my tickets off the internet I had to go to the train station at Gare de Lyon to retrieve my actual tickets from a kiosk using the bank card I used to pay for the trip. The problem was that the kiosks only take french bank cards (they swipe differently than American ones- there's a magnetic square instead of a stripe, but whatever...), and I figured that out too late so I ended up missing my train! It all worked out though since there was another train leaving early the next morning. I had to pay for another ticket to Torino, but at least I didn't have to buy another return ticket. Oh well. C'est la vie.

But the ride itself was great toward the end! Since Torino is basically in the Alps, I got a pretty nice view of the snow-capped mountains:
I had never seen snow-capped mountains before this trip, so yes, it was a big deal for me. I didn't cry tears of joy, but I think the man sitting across from me on the train was a bit curious about my continuous gaping at the scenery.

When I got off the train I rode the metro to a station closer to where we were staying. I came alone on the train, so I met my friends after I bought 2 very important cards: the Torino + Piemonte Card, which was basically a pass to the city because if you have it you can get into all the museums and ride the public transportation for free. There are also a lot of discounts you can get with it too, for different tours of the city. Second, I bought my Choco Pass, which is a booklet of coupons for chocolate samples from different chocolatiers around Torino. Torino is apparently the birthplace of solid chocolate, meaning they have plenty of experience in making some of the best chocolate in the world, and we definitely took advantage of that.

Side note: I don't know if this is an Italian thing or just for Torino, but their hot chocolate is really thick. It's basically like eating hot pudding. Really really good hot pudding though.

After the essentials were taken care of, I met up with my friends for pizza (of course!) and then I went to our hostel to drop off my bag. This was my first experience staying in a hostel, and I really liked it! It was cheap ($20/night), had breakfast included, and you get to meet people from all over. We shared a room with a few other people, including a girl who was currently living at the hostel while trying to find an apartment in Torino, an older lady who snores, and another older lady who gets up early to make noise. Most everyone else there were people our age from other countries in Europe, probably on a mini-vacation like us.


Here is a bus stop near our hostel. I have no idea what it's for, but it looks nice! I liked the flowers. :)


This is the view from our hostel. It was on a hill so we got a great view of part of the city. I heard it's also in the expensive part of town too. I guess that's why the buildings were so nice- some had these amazing frescoes and beautiful designs. It wasn't at all like Paris, where all the buildings are similar because they have to follow strict building codes. Each house had its own individual charm.


This is the room we stayed in. There were 4 bunk-beds, and we each had a security locker.



Here's a bigger picture in case you couldn't see the other one (but remember you can enlarge the picture by clicking on it).



Hall bathroom. Everyone on the floor had to share, but no problem for us!



Here's Shannon and Joanna in the downstairs lobby! (Joanna is a friend of Shannon's from class. Our friend Ashley from Georgia Tech came too, and I was there, and that's all.)

After I dropped off my things, we all went to the Egyptian museum (Museo Egizio). I have to say, I was very impressed by the collection there because usually when you go to Egyptian museums, they have artifacts like broken pots and jewelry, but nothing like what I saw at the Museo Egizio. I found out later that the reason why was because it holds the best collection of Egyptian artifacts in the world after the museum in Cairo. They had almost everything completely intact! And big things too! Statues, sarcophagi, mummies! It was so cool!

This is the biggest statue in the exhibit. It looked to be about 10-15 feet high.



This is another sculpture I found.




There were so many statues that I wanted to take a video to show how many there were. You can see the sculptures in the pictures I put above this, but it was dark in that particular room, so I'm sorry if it's hard to see.



If you know me at all you know I'm a sucker for organization, so when I unexpectedly got a kind of tourist portfolio when I bought my Torino Card, I was a little too excited about it. After we toured the Egyptian museum I decided to document how awesome this portfolio is. :)




This is the Piazza Vittorio Veneto. We came back here a lot since this is where most of the bus lines go to. After the museum visit, we stopped here for dinner. If you keep going up the road in this picture...



...you'll see this street, called Via Po. They had all these lights on other streets too, and I think they had them up early for Christmas.
Side note: most of the streets were called "Via" something, so I guess that means street in Italian. In French, street = rue.



The lights weren't all the same though. On this street they had lights that looked like imitations of snowballs. It was so cute!




Here is another view of the Piazza Vittorio Veneto. I was facing across the river towards this church called the Gran Madre di Dio (it's the lit-up building in the center).




Here's a closer view of the Gran Madre di Dio.




And this is even closer. I obviously liked this church. I liked the classical architecture the best.


Here are my travel companions! From the left: Ashley from Georgia Tech, Joanna from Greece, and Shannon my roommate!




Here we are at dinner! It was so yummy- we all had pasta, and Joanna and I tried this sweet wine with it. Delizioso! :D




This is a Torino cop car! We guessed it to be a Ferrari, since it is Italy after all. Maybe we're right. Or maybe we know nothing about cars. :P

Side note: I think Italian guys must be really into hair gel. Almost every guy around my age I saw in Torino had some style going on that looked like a faux-hawk, and it was always very stiff-looking and shiny.




After dinner we returned to the hostel and planned out our next day. Here are Shannon and Ashley doing most of the work while I sat around taking pictures (ha ha).




...and videos too! By the way, when I say "crazy ladies" in this video, I'm referring to the older ones who snore and make noise in the morning. And they go to bed before 8pm, forcing us to loiter in the hallways planning out our days in the dark. It's funny in retrospect. I really was no help to Shannon or Ashley, and I seem a little crazy in the video as well, but I swear I was under no kind of influence. I was just a little tired I think. :)



But Ashley and Shannon did a good job planning because the next day was great!


First we went to the top of this mountain called the Monte dei Cappucini where there was a small church overlooking Torino. It was quite a workout getting to the top, but it was worth it to see the view.




This is inside the church. So beautiful!



Here is the view from the mountain. You can see almost all of Torino from here, and a lot more if it wasn't so misty.




After we saw the church and the spectacular view, we decided to have some fun with my camera! This is Joanna, Ashley, Shannon, and some other people who happen to look exactly like them!


Here we are with Shannon behind the lens. We got some interesting looks that day.





After we descended the mountain we walked towards this beautiful park called the Parco del Valentino, but here's a picture crossing the Fiume Po river to get there.





This is from the Ponte Umberto I, which is the bridge we crossed over that river from above. There were four of these sculptures cornering the bridge, and each one signified something different: piety, valour, art and industry. I'm not sure what the one in the picture represents, but I don't think it's industry.




These next two pictures are for my mom. I found these meats on display in a butcher shop close to the bridge and this one, in case you can't tell, is a chicken with it's head nicely resting next to it's ready-to-be-cooked-and-eaten body...gross gross gross!




And here is some more meat on display with the animals' kidneys (I think) still in place in case that's in any way appetizing. Your welcome, mom. :P





This, however, is the magnificent Castello del Valentino, which was inside the Parco del Valentino. It was finished in 1630 and it's closed to the public today.




There were a lot of people at the castello that day... or were there?... :)




We found these gigantic pens on display in the castello courtyard, and we didn't know why they were there, but we still enjoyed pretending to write with them (in case you can't read it, I wrote "Ciao").




After that, we caught a bus to this mountain that was barely visible from Torino to see the Basilica di Superga, which is in the picture. It took us a while to get there and if it weren't for random Italians who spoke English and wanted to be helpful along the way, we would have most likely gotten lost.
Side note: Torino seems like a very friendly city!




It's hard to see because of the mist, but this was the view from the Basilica. Hard to believe, but it was even better than the view from Monte dei Cappucini!




This is a view from the other side. We were pretty high up in the mountains.





After we got back to Torino, we went to the Palazzo Madama (palazzo = palace in english), where inside there was this huge hall. The building currently is a museum for antique art from medieval, gothic, and renaissance periods. The palazzo was in this square called the Piazza Castello, and there was another palace, the Palazzo Reale, right next door. We visited that the next day.





Speaking of which, the next day we went to the Olympic Village. In case you don't remember, Torino was the host of the 2006 Winter Olympic Games (we Georgians have an excuse since we don't know what snow looks like). Here is the gang minus Joanna doing the signature Ashley pose when taking pictures (she did this in front of a sphinx at the Egyptian museum and I didn't stop laughing for days).




Here's the arch they built for the Olympics!







I know it's random, but for lunch that day we went to a small restaurant that had the Simpsons playing and it was dubbed in Italian! I had to document it!

Side note: Apparently, Italians say "prego!" for everything! I've heard it mean "please", "you're welcome", "go ahead", "ok tour group, let's go"... so if you're trying to speak Italian and you're not sure what to say, just say "prego!" and you'll probably be right at least half the time.




Later we went to probably the most famous building in Torino (or at least it seemed that way since it was all over the postcards), called the Mole Antonelliana. This building is huge and you can see it from almost anywhere in the city, kind of like how the Eiffel Tower is in Paris.





We rode the elevator to the top of the Mole Antonelliana and here's a view of the city by night.





Here's a closer view.




And here's a video of it! (It was a pretty spectacular view)





The Mole Antonelliana also houses the National museum of cinema, or the Museo Nazionale del Cinema, and according to various tourist pamphlets, it's the only one of its kind in Italy and one of the most important in the world. They had exhibits on the origins of film making, with things like Chinese paper lanterns and the things you spin to make it look like the picture is moving. When we were there they also had this huge exhibit on Roman Polanski. It was really interesting. I think the coolest part was that they had these crazy sets that seemed like they were from either specific films (such as the weird looking demon thing in the picture that looks like it could have come from an Indiana Jones movie), or sets that could have been a generic backdrop for several films (there was one set that looked like a saloon from a western film).





They also had these reclining chairs spaced out on the ground floor where there were huge projection screens showing clips from old films. It was definitely nice sitting in one after a long day of walking around, hence the enthusiastic thumbs up!





AH! You caught me on the toilet! Just kidding! They had these toilets lined up as if they were seats in a movie theater facing a screen playing really abstract film clips. Don't ask me to explain further because I have no idea...




This was from one of those weird sets- it looked like some cheesy honeymoon suite! It was very seductive though, or was that just me? (ha ha!)






They also had these cameras that could record you and put your image on top of a movie clip, so we basically got our 15 minutes of fame playing in the Matrix! (We caused quite a stir... we realized later that there was a small crowd of people watching us mess around from a different screen projecting our clip. And the museum staff was enjoying our amateur stunts as well) In this video I'm recording our clip afterwards.



The next day we all headed back to Paris. I wasn't really happy to be going back to classes and work and reality again, but it was nice to return to a city where I could understand what people are saying around me! Awesome first trip and more to come!