Road Trip Torino: Days 7-9

On Saturday we didn’t have rain. It was cloudy and a little chilly, but it wasn’t raining. So we went to the market, of course. On Saturdays in Torino, there is a market. OK, there’s a market every day in Torino. I’ve read that this is the largest open air market in Europe. It’s certainly the largest I’ve ever seen. And on Saturdays it’s even bigger. You’ve already seen the section that sells meat—indoors. Saturday we explored the rest of it. There is a section dedicated to fruit and vegetables, of course:

And a section dedicated to clothing...

And jewelry...

And even a section dedicated solely to shoes. This part sells housewares—everything from sheets and towels to batteries and pots and pans and perfume. I bought a long rolling pin from this guy:

We went into the building dedicated to fish. It didn’t smell fishy, but rather it smelled like the sea. I liked that. I was surprised, though, here and in all the market that the food wasn’t always local. We’re just north of the town of Bra, birthplace of the slow food movement. But in Torino, there were fish from Viet Nam and vegetables from Venezuela. That’s in addition to lots of stuff from the Piemonte region, of course! And they always tell you where something is from.

This swordfish was sliced as people bought it. You can see the head and by the eyes you can see that it’s fresh.

I wish you could hear and smell this market. The herbs smelled heavenly, and the vendors were chattering non-stop. It was amazing. It was also a pickpocket’s haven. More than one vendor warned us about pickpockets. I never take my wallet out in a market. I put ‘market money’ in a change purse before I go and that’s all I ever use. If I need more, too bad. If somebody steals the change purse, that’s all they get. It hasn’t happened yet, though… On Sunday it was drizzly, so I left the camera at home. I’m still not comfortable with it in wet conditions. We started the day by going to the Museum of ‘La Sindone’, the Shroud of Turin. I’ve always been interested in the Shroud, and have followed with interest the research on it and the various ideas about who and what it represents. In the museum there was a film showing close-ups of various parts of the Shroud. I found the images strangely moving. Whoever you think they may be, this was someone who suffered terribly, and whose wounds were inflicted over a period of time. One fact that I’d never read or heard about was that his nose was broken. Somehow this made it all more real to me. It’s hard to explain, but I was more touched by these photos than I expected to be. The Shroud itself is rarely seen. It was only shown 4 times in the 20th century. Normally, all you can see are replicas and photos. However, we are very lucky—it’s on display right now, and we have reservations to see it next week. What amazing luck! After the museum we tried to go to the Egyptian museum, but the line was around the block. As you can imagine, we didn’t want to stand in line in the rain. So we decided to explore the city some more. Torino has great public transportation—busses and trams. We chose two tram lines that criss-crossed the city, and rode them from end to end. It was a great way to see parts of the city we normally wouldn’t see. It is really a pretty city. Then we went home to our apartment and did our homework.

To be continued....