TORINO

On Friday morning I headed to Torino, or Turin.  I took a six and a half hour train ride north of Potenza Picena, where I am staying, to get to Torino.  The train went along the EAST coast (just for you Paula and Steph) of Italy and then headed into the country.  It was an absolute beautiful train ride.  I passed through many different towns including Bologna and Modena.  All the way to Torino there was sun.  When I got to Torino, the dark clouds set in.

After getting off the train, I got a taxi to take me to my hotel because I had no clue where it was.  The cute taxi driver gave me a little tour of Torino as we headed towards the hotel.  My first look of Torino reminded me of Paris.  The buildings had similar architecture.  We drove along the River Po and then headed into Piazza Vittorio Veneto.  After we passed through the piazza, my hotel was immediately on the right.  I was in the very center of Torino.  I checked into my hotel, and afterwards I walked around to find a place to eat.

I walked around the piazza and decided to grab food to go.  All the restaurants were packed, so I grabbed a slice of pizza and a panini to go.  As it was getting late, I wanted to get a good night sleep for my long day ahead.  I stayed at Hotel Amadeus e Teatro.  I would recommend its location, but not much else.

In the morning I started to go around Torino around 10 am.  I may have been the only person in Torino at that time because nobody was around.  It kind of freaked me out a little bit.  I walked around the piazza and along the River Po.  There were tons of shops, but none of them were open.  I continued walking for a bit.  It looked like rain, and I did not bring any rain gear thinking the weather would be similar to the weather in Potenza Picena.  As I walked a bit further, I found a hop-on hop-off bus of Torino.  I hopped on, and I found out that I was one of five people on the tour for the morning.  I stayed on the hour long tour, and I got to listen to an audio set about the history of Torino.

When the tour was over, I noted that a lot of the stores were still closed and there were still not a lot of people.  I decided to head back to the hotel for a bit.  It was hard to occupy my time.  I read a little bit of my new book choice, "Pride and Prejudice," and I searched the TV for some English speaking channels.  All I was able to find was MTV music videos.  After two hours I noticed the sun had come back out, so I headed back into the town.  There were a lot more people around, so I felt much more comfortable walking around.  I walked around a lot finding the Egyptian Museum, the Spike, and Royal Palace.

After about another three hour walk around the city, the rain started up again.  I headed back to the hotel hoping it would let up.  It was only 5pm when I got back to the hotel.  I hoped it would get better out, but it was just cold and dreary.  I grabbed some food to go since a lot of the restaurants weren't open.  My day in Torino could have been more successful had the weather been more forgiving and if I had remembered to check the weather.  However, even though the weather was not great, I was able to see another amazing city in Italy.