Torino, the first capital

Well first of all, I never though about to go to Torino but, when I got off the train and I put my feet in turino I fell in love for this city.

It's a beautiful city, many histories, many museums, many nice people.

If I could choose a place to live in Europe, certainly to be there.

Torino is awsome, I have been in almost all the touristic places and I was surprised how beautiful was the city.

There is a big river crossing the city, and the smell it's good.

It's possible to feel a cold wind which come from the alps and at the same time a warm sun that heats the skin.

The travel

Once again I chose to take the train to travel, once again the Regionale Veloce - TRENITALIA. I arrived in the train station at 14:00 and I bought the ticket on the machine, easy and quickly. This time the travel was faster than to Venice, only 2 hours. The landscape was beautiful.

Torino at night

Palazzo Madama

Palazzo Madama

Palazzo Madama

Palazzo Madama

Palazzo Madama

Palazzo Madama

Palazzo Madama

Palazzo Madama

Piaza Vittorio Veneto

River Po

Piazza Gran Madre di Dio

Ponte Vittorio Emanuele I

Piazza Carlo Alberto

Palazzo Carignano

Accommodation

The hostel it was good, nothing special, I paid €22.00 for one night in a six bed bedroom with breakfast. I liked because there was people from every where a australian couple, an english guy, an argentinian and a russian girl (funny girl)

A little bit far away from the city center, but close enough to go walking. There are many shops around and a bus station in front.

Organic items are served every morning for breakfast, which includes sweet food and drinks. Guests can enjoy a communal lounge and shared kitchen. 

 

 I liked the furniture and decoration

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 Beds quite confortable.Everything were welly arranged, staffs were kindly, and the place was quite clean and comfortable, generally recommended!

Traffic, cycle paths and mobility

Torino as a any other big city also has a mobility problem, I could see some traffic at 6:00pm but it's interesting because they have many diferent ways to getting around. The city is equiped with metro, train, tran, roads and cycle paths.

 
(Here we can see the road, the lane bus, the cyclo path and the sidewalk)

The city currently has a large number of rail and road work sites. Although this activity has increased as a result of the 2006 Winter Olympics, parts of it had long been planned. Some of the work sites deal with general roadworks to improve traffic flow, such as underpasses and flyovers, but two projects are of major importance and will radically change the shape of the city.

One is the Spina Centrale ("Central Spine") project which includes the doubling of a major railway crossing the city, the Turin-Milan railway locally known as Passante Ferroviario di Torino ("Turin Railway Bypass"). The railroad previously ran in a trench, which will now be covered by a major boulevard running from North to South of Turin, in a central position along the city. Porta Susa, on this section, will become Turin's main station to substitute the terminus of Porta Nuova with a through station. Other important stations are Stura, Rebaudengo, Lingotto and Madonna di Campagna railway stations, though not all of them belong to the layout of the Spina Centrale.

The other major project is the construction of a subway line based on the VAL system, known as Metrotorino. This project is expected to continue for years and to cover a larger part of the city, but its first phase was finished in time for the 2006 Olympic Games, inaugurated on 4 February 2006 and opened to the public the day after. The first leg of the subway system linked the nearby town of Collegno with Porta Susa in Turin's city centre. On 4 October 2007 the line was extended to Porta Nuova and then, in March 2011, to Lingotto. A new extension of the so-called Linea 1 ("Line 1") is expected in the near future, reaching both Rivoli (up to Cascine Vica hamlet) in the Western belt of Turin and Piazza Bengasi in the Southeast side of the city. Furthermore, an alleged Linea 2 is in the pipeline and it is supposed to cross Turin from North to South.

 

The main street in the city centre, Via Roma, runs atop a tunnel built during the fascist era (when Via Roma itself was built). The tunnel was supposed to host the underground line but it is now used as an underground car park. A project to build an underground system was ready in the 1970s, with government funding for it and for similar projects in Milan and Rome. Whilst the other two cities went ahead with the projects, Turin's local government led by mayor Diego Novelli shelved the proposal as it believed it to be too costly and unnecessary.
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The city has an international airport known as Caselle International AirportSandro Pertini (TRN), located in Caselle Torinese, about 13 km (8 mi) from the centre of Turin and connected to the city by a railway service (from Dora Station) and a bus service (from Porta Nuova and Porta Susa railway stations). 

As of 2010 also a bicycle sharing system, the ToBike, is operational.

The metropolitan area is served by Turin metropolitan railway service 

The river PO

Turin is located in Northwest Italy. It is surrounded on the western and northern front by the Alps and on the eastern front by a high hill that is the natural prosecution of the hills of Monferrato. Four major rivers pass through the city: the Po and three of its tributaries, the Dora Riparia (once known as Duria Minor by the Romans, from the Celtic noun duria meaning "water"), the Stura di Lanzo and the Sangone.

(cyclo path along the river)

Palazzo Madama

Palazzo Madama

Palazzo Madama

Porte Palatine

The Egyptian Museum of Turin

The second largest in the world after the one in Cairo. The next post will be about the museum. 

Piazza San Carlo and the equestrian monument to Emmanuel Philibert

 
The Mole Antonelliana

The Mole Antonelliana

Piaza Vittorio Veneto

Museo Nazionale della Montagna "Duca degli Abruzzi" (National Mountain Museum "Duca degli Abruzzi")

The National Mountain Museum "Duca degli Abruzzi" is placed on the hill of Turin, on the side of the church and of the convent of the Monte dei Cappuccini, in a panoramic position from which you can admire a long stretch of the Alps and the city below. The idea to build a museum was born in 1874 among the first partners of the Club Alpino Italiano, which a decade before was born in the same city.

Nowadays the museum works, with a vast and varied activity, both at a national and at an international level. It wants to be a link of cultural unity which ideally unites, under every aspect, the mountains from all over the world. Therefore, following the prearranged aim, to the setting of the permanent museum, some temporary exhibitions are added.

Look this view

 

Panoramic View

Piaza Solferino

Food

While I was walking looking for the Mole Antonelliana I've been in the university and I found a cheap restaurant to have lunch. The food was quite good and really cheap. Unfortunatelly I dont remember the name, but it's in front of the university.
I had two sandwiches:

The genesis
€3.50
A big bread with cheese, ham, chicken and chips (the chips were inside the sandwich)

The semidolce
€1.00
A sweet bread with ham and cheese

Coke
€1.00

After eat, some birds were around me to try to get some bread and i fed one.