Postcard from Torino

Torino was a city that appeared at the margins of my Italian brain. I knew it as the city that had birthed some of my favorite writers (Primo Levi, etc) and I knew it as a city that hosted the Olympics. Me? I was fiorentina all the way. Except for the Eternal City, because it's, ahem, Eternal. (All roads really DO lead to Rome.)

But then I arrived in Torino and the rest of what I will say is just pure cliche, except that really and truly you must visit Torino. Really and truly you need to experience the grand piazzas and the porticos and the coffee culture and the pastries.

Turin, as I wrote in an essay for CNN Travel, is surrounded by mountains and criss-crossed by trams and cyclists. Being outdoors is what people do there, instinctively. Oh and the city is covered with porticos, or covered walkways, so strolling is a year-round hobby (not every city in Italy has these porticos; Florence, for example, has very few.)

The city also has the distinction of having been right in the middle of the Risorgimento, when Italy became an independent country.

One of the things the visit telegraphed to me was how little I've really traveled in Italy.

Sure, I've lived in Siena, Florence, Pisa and Rome. I've vacationed in Bologna, Milan, the Italian Riviera, Venice, the Benevento area in Campania and Puglia. Been to Rome countless times. I've even visited Sicily, which required a hectic overnight ferry.

But it's a big country, Italy. Torino has a different history -- and a different vibe (one laser-focused on coffee culture and public conviviality) -- from all these other places I've mentioned.

(As problems go, it is most certainly a FIRSTWORLDPROBLEM. But as an Italianist, I aim to know everything I can about my adopted culture).

For more about Torino, you can read an article I wrote for CNN Travel:

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/return-trip-italy/index.html

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