Day 9 Touring Turin

In which Sid and Doris visit a new Medieval village and the Risorgimento Museum.

Our first visit is to via Roma which runs through the centre of the city, which was substantially rebuilt in the 1930’s with a combined goal to make Italy great again and soak up about 2,500 builders. From time to time there is some rather heroic statuary, but for the most part it just looks like clean modern architecture.

Along the way we find the Lego shop and naturally drop in to marvel, expecting to be two of not many unaccompanied adults. Only to find the Piedmont chapter of the Lego Users Group getting busy (it is a mixed chapter, not boys-only). They were very carefully gaming the system that allows you to buy pieces by the tub, filling the tub with pieces pressed together to exactly match its internal volume. For less creative builders you can get a kit Lego Mini Cooper number 177, the Rauno Aaltonen Monte winning car of 1967, and Sid might.

Some really fab things have been built for Great Exhibitions such as the Eiffel Tower and the Crystal Palace. To add to this we have Burgo Medievale in Turin built for the Italian General Exhibition in 1884, when the state of Italy was 14 years old. Based on towns and buildings all over Italy the builders created a village of the late 1400’s with its commerce and a full size castle. Perhaps less authentic, it does not smell and in this time of plague the streets are quite empty.

The next guided tour of the castle is late morning so we go back to the River Po.

This is Saturday morning so the banks and the river are busy.  Onshore there is a socially-distanced and apparently spontaneous Zumba session.  On the river there are sculls and fours out, some quite expert and other coxed crews possibly out for the first time.