An Afternoon in Turin

The weather forecast predicted rain for the weekend, and although I initially intended to stay at home and catch up on some work, my idle Google searches led me down a rabbit hole that would turn my plans upside down. Looking up the weather forecasts for neighbouring cities, I stumbled upon sunny Turin: With its direct bus connection to Geneva, cheap accommodation, and host of attractions, it was the perfect option. Thus, on Wednesday night, I booked my tickets and an Airbnb, and spent the rest of the week daydreaming about the getaway.

The beginning of my journey was a little stressful. Because of the rigid bus schedule, I got to the Gare Routière in Geneva a full half an hour early, which gave me a lot of time to fret about the bus not being there. I was not the only one. As the 7:30 departure time drew nearer and nearer, more and more people started milling about nervously, asking passers-by where they are going and identifying other lost souls. The group accosted every bus driver it could lay its hands upon but did not receive any information. Bemused by the inquiries, one of the bus drivers swung his arms open and said in heavily accented English that “even planes can be late, you know.”

As it turned out, our bus was delayed by twenty minutes. The driver’s brief struggle against the parking lot’s barrier arm increased this delay by another five minutes, as did a customs inspection at the Franco-Swiss border. I am not sure why this practice seems to have become more frequent as of late, but if I had to wager a guess it would be artificial employment.

As the bus wound its way along the mountainous roads from Switzerland to France and then to Italy, the weather did indeed clear up. Four hours after our departure, we arrived in sunny Turin, and I immediately set about exploring the city. Walking towards the centre, I passed by Piazza Solferino and its lovely park before arriving at the grand and popular Piazza San Carlo. Even in the middle of October, it was heaving with tourists, as was the whole Via Roma, which runs between some of Turin’s most famous attractions.

The street took me to Piazza Castello, which stretches out under the Palazzo Madama. A strange and deceitful building, the palace faces the square with a relatively standard neo-classical façade, but a walk around it reveals its red brick back side with high defensive towers and military statues. From the Piazza Castello, one can see several of Turin’s most visited sights: The Royal Church of Saint Laurence, the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist, and the Royal Palace of Turin, which leads directly to the Chapel of the Sacred Shroud. This legendary relic is not currently on display; I heard from a passing tour group that the next time the public will get to see it is in 2025.

Nonetheless, I figured that a visit to Turin would not be complete without a visit to the Chapel. Tickets to the Royal Palace of Turin include not just this holy place, but also a whole sprawling complex of galleries and museums, whose subjects range from renaissance artwork to Roman statues and Bronze Age archaeology. Before entering, however, I made a quick stop at the Palatine Gate just north of the palace. A fine example of a Roman ruin, the gate’s two towers soar above the more dilapidated remains of the wall, which now lead into an urban park. The whole place appears to be well-liked by tourists and locals alike, attracting families for strolls in the sun.

As I learned subsequently at the palace, Turin was the birthplace of Victor Emmanuel II, whom the history books know as the uniter of Italy and the country’s first modern king (he was not born in the Royal Palace but one of the many others that dot the cityscape). Turin thus served as modern Italy’s first capital before the title moved to Florence and then Rome. Besides playing a prominent role in the Risorgimiento, Turin was also the motor of Italy’s car industry after the Second World War and remains one of its main economic powerhouses.

Having spent over an hour at the museum, I was too hungry to remain any longer, and I walked over to the Mole Antonelliana in hopes of finding lunch somewhere on the way. Luck was on my side. Just beneath the resplendent tower, I found a nice outdoor restaurant with very acceptable prices: for only seven euros, I bought myself a delicious pizza buffala and ate the whole pie. It felt quite warm, but I did not order any water and drank my own, which had the added benefit of lightening the load considerably before I set off again.

My last stop for the day was the Egyptian Museum. The largest collection of Egyptian artefacts outside Egypt, it began as a royal collection all the way back in the seventeenth century. As I read in the long exhibition dedicated solely to the museum’s history, it was believed that Turin lay on the site of a temple dedicated to the goddess Isis. The story served as a convenient justification for expanding the collection ever further while doubling as a nice etiological myth for Turin’s citizens.

Only halfway through the exhibition did it occur to me that I did could not recall putting my jacket into the museum locker. The longer I thought about it, the clearer I remembered: it was so warm when I ate my lunch that I left my jacket on the chair. I did not want this unfortunate circumstance to ruin my museum visit, though, and fortunately there was plenty to distract me: entire rows of sarcophagi, scrolls unfurled across huge walls, and an entire room dedicated to statues of the goddess Sekhmet. Perhaps the most impressive sight, however, was a patchy, almost six-thousand-year-old depiction of rowers on the river Nile. Seeing such an old iteration of a motif repeated over the millennia was uncanny, and I could not help but return to the image multiple times.

The search for my jacket began as soon as I left the last exhibition. I checked whether there was a lost and found just in case my suspicions were wrong, but no one had brought in a jacket of any sort. As I walked to the restaurant, I began to piece together the solution to another mystery. Earlier during the day, I had wondered why there were so many policemen in the streets. It turned out that they were preparing for a pro-Palestine demonstration, sealing off various side-roads to prevent things from getting out of hand.

It was just my luck that my mad dash for the restaurant brought me directly in its path. Before I knew it, I was trapped between the place I had left, the approaching crowd, and a police cordon to my right. Rather than sensibly cutting my losses and finding a different route, however, I was already monomaniacally set on my direction. Spotting a particularly fierce lady bent on making it to the other side, I tagged along and hid behind her sharp elbows as we made our way past the demonstrators.

I arrived at the restaurant before closing hours. The jacket was there, and I rejoiced that I would not freeze on my evening walk. The journey took me along the river and through the Parco del Valentino to the Castello del Valentino, which had just been lit for the evening. I did not feel particularly hungry, but I knew that if I didn’t eat anything I would be hungry when I fell asleep. Besides, my Airbnb hosts were only expecting me at eight and it was barely seven. Wandering around the neighbourhood, I eventually found a Sicilian café and sat down for a few minutes to eat some dolci whose names I have already forgotten. It is a loss that will not sting. Sicilian desserts appear to be very sweet, and I am not fond of their otherwise unremarkable taste.