Torino pt. 3

Tomorrow we leave for Roma early in the morning so this is the final Torino post! I think we are all ready to go to Roma and settle down there for the next few months. We are also so excited to explore Roma and be in the Eternal City!

This past week has been filled with a mixture of success and failures but they all make for good stories later on!

On Saturday afternoon, we went to Duomo di S. Giovanni (Torino's Cathedral where the Holy Shroud of Turin is!). We first went to the Duomo's museum as the church was closed when we arrived (of course). The museum had some incredible artwork! The man who admitted us was taken with Giorgio and keep waving to him.

The Duomo itself was beautiful. The Holy Shroud of Turin was not on display since it is only a display every decade or so. (We knew that before coming to Torino so we were not disappointed). Being so close to the Holy Shroud was still amazing! My other favorite thing about this church was that one of my favorite blessed is buried here; Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati! If you don't know about him you should read about him. When I was teaching, he was one of the people who I had my students study and that they were able to relate to. He is a great inspiration for the modern person.

Behind the glass on the lower level is where the chapel that the Holy Shroud is in is.

After the Duomo, we went to the Savoy family's "chapel", San Lorenzo, that is attached to the Palazzo Reale (the Royal Palace). The chapel was built by another Baroque architect and was not really the size of a chapel more like a church. It was fascinating to see another Baroque church designed by someone else other than Vittone and see the different ways the architecture can be interpreted.

While at San Lorenzo, Giorgio fell asleep so we decided to utilize this opportunity and tour the Palazzo Reale. WOW!! I wish we could have taken pictures here. The Palace was so grand. It was more ornate than any other place we have been in and the other places we visited were incredibly ornate. One of our favorite rooms was the armory. It had had incredibly lifelike horses fitted with armor and knights posed on top of them. The weapons from the Crusades up until the early 20th century were on display. Stephen, we thought of you the entire time and how much you would have loved seeing it all!

Sunday, we went to mass at the Duomo and then George went back to the churches he had tried to get into north of Torino. (I mentioned the failure of getting into three of them in Torino pt. 2). He just needed to get into one of the three and he wanted to go to one in particular. So when he arrived, mass was just starting as he expected. He attended the mass and then afterwards asked the priest if it would be okay if he sketched the church or at least could take some photos of it. The priest said no but that he could come back tomorrow at 4pm. So George came back to Torino frustrated of course but also excited because he said the church was the most beautiful one he had been in.

On Monday morning, we went to the Basilica di Superga. My favorite place in Torino!

It is at the top of a hill overlooking Torino and then you can see the Alps in the distance surrounding Torino. It had rained the night before so it had cleared out the overcast and now we could see the Alps! We took a tour of Superga and of the Savoy family crypt, which is below the church.

The large dome in the middle of the photo is the Museum of Cinema and our apartment is right across the street from that museum. It is called the Mole.

On the top of the foothill to the left of the valley is a building which is Sacra San Michel. That is where we went last week.

When we started the tour, the tour guide saw that we had a translation of the tour in our hand and started to in French explain that he was going to do the tour only in Italian and that we could not take photos. This keeps happening to me. A person will speak Italian to me and I will get this blank look on my face and then they will speak French to me. At that point, I either figure out what they are saying through picking up words that are similar to English or Latin or I will respond in Italian that I do not understand them. I guess I will take it as a compliment that they do not right off the bat think I am an English speaker. But it makes for a confusing interaction for me!

George's interactions with the Italians are pretty funny. They speak Italian to him and then he responds with the few words of Italian that he knows. To an observer it seems that he understands the person perfectly but when you ask him later what the person said he will often say he only kinda understands! This often times happens when ordering food which is a little nerve racking!

The cappuccino at Superga's cafe was delicious. Only in Italy would a church's/ museum's cafe have great coffee.

Giorgio studying his Italian so he can better flirt with the little girls and the elderly ladies! Actually at Superga, there were two older men who were quite taken with little George and wanted to know all about him. They could only speak Italian but miraculously I was able to respond to all of their questions and comments about George!

In the afternoon, George went back to the Vittone church north of Torino. He arrived at 4 pm as instructed and waited for an 1 1/2 hr! Then he saw a women entering a side door, explained who he was and what he wanted to do, and she told him to wait. So he waited some more and heard in the other room the Rosary start. Would he have to wait for the Rosary to end? Finally the priest entered (the one who had the previous day told him no), recognized him and then showed him into the church while he went into another chapel attached to the church to say mass. Yeah he got in after three tries!!!!

Tuesday was pretty uneventful except for one disgusting lunch. We wanted to go back to Eataly for lunch one more time before leaving. We decided on splitting an antipasta from the salami & formaggio section and then an entree from the meat section. George ordered the special knowing that it contained veal but he could not translate the rest. We trusted that it would be yummy since it was Eataly. The antipasta was delicious but when the entree came... it turned out to be veal liver!!!! Gross!! We tried to eat it and Giorgio actually ate a decent amount but George and I had a difficult time eating our portion. But we ended the meal with amazing gelato (chocolate & pistachio, the Italians know what they are doing when they ask for that combination).

I know I have posted tons of George's gelato face but its just so cute!

On Wednesday, we visited the town of Bra south of Torino so that George could study what is considered Vittone's masterpiece. It truly is a stunning church!

After visiting the church, we walked around the town, enjoying the market and scenery. We came upon a restaurant that ended up being part of the Slow Food Movement. (It started in Bra and its goal is to counter against the junk food culture and encourage a revitalization of regional cooking with regional ingredients.) The food was the best we have had in Piedmont. Giorgio particular enjoyed Dad's pasta and our pudding! But he also enjoyed eyeing a little girl there. Right in the middle of a bite of food a little girl ran by and little George watched her with his fork poised in the air. Oh boy is he starting early!

The other treat of the day was a pastry that George brought home after he had run out into Torino for the afternoon. I don't know if any of you had a sfogliatella (Fr. DeRosa introduced it to us) but coda d'aragosta was like it but bigger, cream filled and the top had whipped cream on top with fruit!! Best pastry thus far!

Another treat George brought home a few days ago was watermelon and ever since then after dinner little George has been really enjoying it!

Little George did not want a slice of the watermelon but the whole thing. I did not get a picture of it but he tried bitting the whole thing.

Today, Thursday, is filled with packing and last minute work on the grant. We went out for a few hours to our favorite cafe in Torino to say "arrivederci" to the city and enjoy one last treat in Torino!

One of our favorite piazzas in the city is Piazza San Carlo with these sister churches right next to each other. One is Baroque and one Neoclassical. Both beautiful churches!

Today particularly he enjoyed riding on Dad's shoulders and pointing to everything asking "Wazdat?"

What a charmer! (Sorry for so many gelato face pictures!

Giorgio, l'Italiano bambino!

George loves his gelato! (He just woke up from a nap in these photos thus the sleepy look) He took a spoon and just started shoveling pretty large scoops of daddy's gelato into his own mouth!

Gyros are not an Italian dish but they are popular here and very popular with Georgie!

"Mmm, chocolate gelato is my favorite" says Mr. Serious

The elderly men and women here like to say "Ciao" to George and he loves it. He gets a big grin on his face and will sometimes wave his hand back to them!

Torino pt. 2

George had success in Chieri! He was able to get into the churches he needed to as well as a little chapel that he did not know anything about! Success! Here are photos of two of the exteriors of the churches:

When he returned home, we all hopped into the car to go north of Torino into the foothills of the Alpes. (We needed to escape the heat.) We went to visit Sacra San Michele, which is a 10th century abbey built on top of a mountain. It is awesome in the true sense of the word and the views from the abbey are breathtaking. We had to walk part of the way up the mountain to reach the abbey but it was truly worth all of the hard work. I think the hike to the abbey is a great reminder to any visitor that the spiritual ascent to God is challenging but the reward is incredible.  One really has to exert oneself to get there but when you get to the abbey... wow you cannot help but to see the glory of God in nature and in the beauty of the church. I am sure this is just a small taste of what heaven is like.

"Little" George also had a ball here. We let him walk around while holding our hand. Oh the simple things... being excited about walking!

One last thing that I loved about this place was that John Paul II visited the abbey. They have the kneeler he knelt at and the prayer he prayed so of course we all prayed there.

We returned to Torino late (poor Georgie) and had our first dinner out in Torino. We all really enjoyed eating some of the regional dishes.

Nana, you would have approved because we ended up ordering three desserts!

On Wednesday, we visited Eataly and Stupinigi. Eataly claims to be the largest food & wine center. It used to be the old Vermouth factory but it was converted into this store that is like Whole Food but 10x better. It is all Italian food, has amazing selections, great prices and each section of the store has a restaurant that features the food in that section. Every section even the beer and wine section has a restaurant! We ate in the meat section and the dessert section although I wish I could have had something in everyone of them!!

As we were going through the store, we realized that many of the food items reminded us of our friends. I took photos of the items that reminded me of each of you but I am not going to post them since it would be a very long post. But I did notice a trend for the guys... we thought of most of you while in the alcohol section.

After lunch, we visited Stupinigi which was one of the royal hunting "lodges" of the Savoy family. It is huge and this is only a fraction of it! Sorry no pictures to show you but the interior is grand! We were unable to bring our camera into the building. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to sleep or eat in one of those rooms. My neck would have hurt from looking up at the frescoed ceiling so much!

On Thursday afternoon, we went to Palazzo Madama. The Savoy family had incredible homes!! This palace is in Torino itself and is also where the antique art museum is.

"Little" George enjoyed walking around and observing the place. What a lucky little boy to be learning how to walk in the palaces of past royalty!

On Friday, we spent the day trying to get into Vittone churches. We were met with a little success. We spent about 2 hours in the first church, which was north of Torino in the foothills of the Alps.

"Little" George and I explored the church and practiced his walking skills while Dad did lots of sketching! After a nice lunch, we tried to get into another church to spend the afternoon sketching. But we tried three different churches and all of them were closed except for Sundays! We, but especially George, are incredibly frustrated by this. But "little" George is such an angel through it all. He loved being in the church in the morning (thank goodness no one else was in it though), loved lunch, and sleep through all of the driving, stops, & grrs.

The high point of the afternoon drive was the stunning views of Alps and  countryside. We also saw kiwi vines! Did you know that kiwis grow on vines and that the vines look very similar to grape vines? We did not until we saw them and thought that they were some strange looking grapes.

On a side note, I was noticing that there is a particular hair style that is incredibly popular here with teenage and twenty something women. As I want to try to look as European as possible I was thinking I would have my hair cut this way. :) What do you all think?

If you can't quite tell what the style is, the women shave part of the hair off (does not seem to matter what part of the head) and then keep the rest of the hair long. It is such a weird haircut!!! Watch this be the next fad in the States!