Italy: Turin
A long cross-whole-Italy drive brought me from Lecce in the southeastern tip of the country to Turin in the northwestern corner. Turin is the capital of the Piedmont region of Italy and the 9th largest city in Europe – an important economic and cultural center. And thanks for my old friend Carlo Berutti (not that he is old, but we’ve just been friends for years), I had a flash tour of the entire Turin and all of its attractions in one jam-packed evening – baroque palaces of city center, Via Roma, Piazza San Carlo, Piazza Castello, Turin Cathedral, and the Palatine Towers (ancient Roman city gates). And of course you can’t see Turin without Mole Antonelliana building which is widely viewed as the main icon of Turin. It was built in 1863 as a synagogue, but became the Museum of Cinema (it is the tallest museum in the world and is featured on an otherwise useless Italian 2-cent coin). Viewing sunset from the top – priceless!
