This past Thursday was the first day of our class trip to Torino or Turin. Given the beautiful weather that has arrived in Italy and the bit of free time I had this weekend, I decided to stay an extra night with a few of my classmates so I could really explore the city. This is a quite long post, my apologies, there was just so much to see (more in "Sunday in Torino" and "Cartoons take over Torino"!
Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Angelli, the rooftop gallery with a few more than 20 pieces of art, was one stop my professor recommended visiting. It was a small gallery with four scenes of Venice by Canaletto and works by Manet, Renoir, Matisse, and Picasso; the highlight of the gallery is visiting the roof, offering splendid views of the city, including the archway over the rail tracks.
Beside the gallery is the original Eataly, a high-end slow food market in Italy. I enjoyed a few items from their shelves outside on the benches in the sun and a giant cone of gelato, chocolate and pistachio = delicious!
The basis of our class trip was Project Management, listening to different cultural organizations from the region. We spent most of our time in a conference room at FitzLab of the Fitzcarraldo Fondazione, a leading center in Turin of cultural arts, media management, and policies. It focuses to bring professionals together, actively involving the community leaders for collaboration and cultivation. The cool part of having FitzLab as our "home base" is it is located in a former Toblerone factory. One of the guest speakers was YouthBank with a neat project to restore and revitalize Porta Palazzo in Turin, the largest outdoor market in Europe, transforming the identity of the area to a same environment for youth.
After sitting in classes for two entire days, I was excited to take a chance to explore the city. I was able to visit most of the main sights, some in my wanderings and some specifically on my "go to" list.
The end of another Palazzo offered spectacular views of the Monte die Cappucini and of the waterfront.
The Duomo di San Giovanni Battista houses the Shroud of Turin. The external view of the cathedral is magnificent with a bell tower to the left and ancient ruins just down the street and the inside was just as beautiful. The Shroud of Turin is where my skepticism lays; all it was is a box at the front of the chapel covered with a cloth and a poster of the image of Christ hanging above the box. You don't actually see the Shroud, so who knows if it truly is in the box. They did provide an interesting video about the stains on the cloth and the marks, but it just did not hold the same fascination not seeing the actual relic.
By chance the Duomo was open during the evening, so I hopped inside again to see why it was still open after hours; from my limited understanding of Italian it appeared that there was a commissioning for missionaries and the approval of the Father, quite neat to see the pews filled with people and active in service.
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