Torino

We've been home for about a week now and I am just getting around to writing about Torino. We stayed in a flat in the business district of Torino which allowed us to buy food from the local shops and cook dinner each night. They eat dinner around 9 PM it was nice to be able to eat a little earlier.

Torino is a neat city to visit, but did not have anything really special that you can not find in most other old, Italian cities. The Cinema Museum was definitely a highlight. After checking out the view from the panoramic lift, you can spend hours wandering around watching movie clips and looking at old photos, costumes, sets, and movie posters. There were a surprising number of American movies featured.

We ventured out to Sacra di San Michelle and had a beautiful hike up the hillside to see the church that was the setting for Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose. The path up was an old mule track that had been laid with slippery stones to make dragging supplies up and down easier. This made walking a bit treacherous so going down was a bit of an adventure. It's a beautiful church with great views of the countryside.

Our day trip to Milan was aborted after a few hours due to heavy rain. We did wander around and took pictures of a majority of the tourist sites, but decided relaxing in the warm apartment was a better way to spend the afternoon. I will have to give it another shot when the weather is better.

Up at 4 AM to catch our plane home. A long, but uneventful flight later and we were welcomed by Nomar and Raul who were mad we left them, but forgave us pretty quickly. We had a great time overall and now just need to find a way to move to Europe permanently.