Welcome to Turin

But with all this rich history the city is mostly known for two things: the Fiat factory and the Shroud of Turin, which still attracts the religious buffs and scientists.

Still the city has so much more to offer – and I don’t only mean the football team Juventus!

I admit that after a long train ride, especially seeing the stations at Venezia Mestre and the main terminal in Milano I was disappointed. I guess that why I was more than pleasantly surprised when we arrived to the station at Turin, which reminded me more of an airport terminal!

At the first kiosk I bought the city pass, which I mostly used for the tram system. It’s an old habit I have, to take the tram and ride around city, just to get a clear orientation where what is and get the first feel of the atmosphere.

The main attraction of the city is undoubtedly the Shroud of Turin, held at the cathedral of St. John the Baptist, but it is not on display. So I took the ride to the riverside and was surprised by the size of the Po River. I expected it to be much less impressive, for it is its upper stream. It is, however, a mighty river!

The city was always vibrant and I loved walking the streets, listening to the chitchat of communicative Italians and browsing through tons of souvenirs, offered along the way.

But once in the city you should not miss the many museums and galleries. I was quite ashamed I didn’t know about their Egyptian museum. It is the biggest museum of Egyptian artefacts outside of Egypt! For a fan of the ancient culture of the river Nile I just had to see it and I’m very grateful to Snežana she found out about it!

I admit it is not as big as the one in Cairo, but at least personally, I got a feeling it was better arranged and made more sense. I guess they were able to better interpret the Egyptian history as they succeeded in the capital of Egypt itself. I warmly recommend it!

All the sport fans and car fans would probably prefer to see the stadium or maybe even the Fiat factory, but it’s not generally open to public.

As a special bonus I’d like to point out, that since we travelled back on March 8th, we only paid for my ticket, for the Italian railways had a special offer remembering the international women’s day and offered every woman accompanying a traveller a free ticket!

Borut Jurišić