YDYtravelers: Si to shining Si and the welcoming noises of Torino

Buongiorno! We are in Italy at our last stop on this awesome trip. Torino (Turin) is our home base and our arrival happened on a train. We left Lyon with sadness early this morning, taking yet another Uber to Gare Lyon Part Dieu. We had a short amount of time to grab coffee and a pastry before boarding and then spent most of the ride, as we tend to do, playing May I. We had a four pack for seating and the 4th of the pack was a very nice guy who was British but grew up in Italy and married a French woman. That’s Europe! The scenery was beautiful and mountainous, and we traveled through many long mountain tunnels. Arriving in Torino was definitely culture shock, as it is every time we’ve stepped off a train in a new country. Italy tends to be noisier than other places I’ve traveled. We found this to be true today.

Our Airbnb is on a very busy road that also is a tram line, right in the center of town. We went to a Trip Advisor recommended restaurant just below our flat for lunch and chose to sit outside. I’m very used to city noises, especially living at a transit hub in Minneapolis. Busses and cars and the light rail are always in the background. But our experience today was just more. More busses and so many trams and the motorcycles with no mufflers were the star of lunch. Torino is a car town. It’s where all (most?) of the Italian luxury cars and motorcycles are made. One of their biggest museums is dedicated to automobiles (interestingly, the other is for cinema - did you know that Torino is the birthplace of Italian cinema? I didn’t. Bet you did, Alex). So lunch was loud. Afterwards we popped into the market directly across the street for staples. And in there, I swear, the music playing overhead was a full pitch. It was super grating bad American rap or something. I actually don’t remember too well, but I can say that my nerves were lit up when we left. So finally, at last, we got back to the apartment to chill out for a while. Then this noise started to happen. It was kind of like a drilling or jack hammer noise. And it was loud. For a solid two hours it kept on, jangling every one of us into a quite a state. My only defense was to go to sleep, so that’s what I did, curled up on half the couch (George was on the other half doing George things). Mom also slept away the noisy afternoon.

Later, refreshed and free of the noises of Torino’s first day, George and I went to the gelato shop down the street and brought some back for Mom. Fantastic stuff, that real Italian gelato. And it’s conveniently a block away! Then, I left Mom and George at home to take a quick spin around our neighborhood to get acquainted. In the span of an hour or so, I found a boba tea shop, craft store, beautiful pedestrian streets lined with Torino’s famous cafes, Roman ruins, several museums, and The Shroud of Turin. I’d say we are well-located. Finding myself in the church with the shroud was particularly interesting, because you’d think there’s be some kind of Mona Lisa-type mayhem related to it, but no. I just popped into this church close by and eventually wandered to the back. There it was with maybe 10 people hanging around. Several were feverishly praying right in front of it. You cant actually see the shroud itself (it’s in this box with cloth draped over it) but there’s an image of the face enlarged hanging above. Fascinating to be in there, all quiet and reverent. Moving on, I was interested that there weren’t really any tourist around the parts of town I visited. There were, however, many interesting shops that I’d like to check out that sold all kind of craft supplies, antiques and oddities. Not bad for a first day, early evening stroll!

Now that we are at the end of this trip, I’m reflecting on the many places we’ve had the privilege to explore. The language keeps changing and I find myself saying yes in the wrong one often. After the few days in Amsterdam (Ja man) I used “Sim” (sounds like Seem but with a soft m) and Si in Spain. Then we had to adjust to Oui for our almost two weeks in France. I just about had that down when we arrived here in Italy today. Si it is again and I’m Ouiing all about town. I do speak a bit of Italian so the transition will likely be easier here. But just think: Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, some German or Romansh in Switzerland, and now finally Italian. What a pleasure it’s been to hear all of these languages in the background of our days. It will be strange to come back to the U.S. and hear only English. Seems like it will be like going from listening to music in stereo to mono.