Patrick and I go to the superstore, or how to see everything in Torino in 2 hours

Sunset over Torino near Il Duomo

On sunday Patrick and I decided to go to the Olympic Superstore. This would entail a trek clear across town to Piazza Vitorio Veneto. So we got onto one of the MC7 busses and off we went.

The crowd in Piazza San Marco

The old part of Torino is very pretty; it's what you think of when you think of Italy. We had planned to take the bus to the Medals Plaza but eventually settled on a bus that took us close to the Piazza San Carlo (where the Today show was striking their set....Matt and Katie had already left).


Sun setting over Piazza San Marco

Patrick had never been to this part of town so I took it upon myself to give him a brief walking tour right up to the Medals Plaza. Being the sunday of Closing Ceremonies, I expected people to be out and about. What we saw was amazing; streets that were the most crowded I had ever seen in Italy; worse than Venice in July. Later I realized that this was the Italian Carnavale (similar to the Rio one I guess) with adults and children dressed in strange costumes.


Family all dressed up


Crowds on the Via Roma
We walked north and then turned east towards the superstore. More crowds.

Patrick heading to the Superstore..way in the background
is the Piazza Gran Madre de Dio

After walking for nearly an hour (a walk I'm sure would have taken about 10 minutes on any other day) we arrived only to find the line wrapped around the building; this was the entrance marked VIP.

While Patrick held our spot I hunted around and found a smaller line on the other side; at the entrance marked public. ??? Whatever. In we went.

The Olympic Superstore at one time was worthy of its name I'm sure but I'm also sure that time has past. Everything looked pretty picked over; all that was left was some rather uninspiring stuff. OK it was crap. And not particularly cool or inexpensive crap. We each bought some souvenirs for family members and got out of there as fast as we could....a stampede was in the works.


Madness of the Olympic Superstore
At this point we figured we could walk back to the Medals Plaza seeing most of the sights of Torino on the way. I really wanted to see the Mole (say like Ole with an M in front of it), which is on our pin (and the NBC Torino logo) and Patrick wanted to see the Cathedral that housed the Shroud (the real shroud itself is only shown once every 25 years). So off we went.

Torino Mole. Not sure what the numbers are for

The Mole was easy. This being Europe we figured it was probably a church of some kind, and at one point perhaps it was. Now it seems to be an office building, with a museum of cinema in the bottom. Being that this was the 2 hour tour we didn't have time to go in or to climb the stairs, so we took our pictures and headed onward.

At this point I must confess I sent us on a wild goose chase. When one wants to learn more about the Shroud you would figure the Museum of the Shroud would be a good choice. It was either my inept reading of the guide book or just my enthusiasm at the mere possibility of a museum but I sent us walking clear across town to the Museum of the Shroud. Of course this journey had to be on foot because seemingly all the streets in between were closed and a) finding a cab and b) getting said cab to drive in and out of the available roads seemed ludicrous. So we walked.

Patrick on the Via Garabaldi. Look at all the people! Look at all the stores!
We walked past seemingly every store in Torino. We went in one or two but neither one of us could find anything worth purchasing.

Street vendors show their wares..
Eventually we threaded our way through the streets to the Museum which was...closed.

Patrick on his way to the Museum
Actually the 'museum' seemed like a regular house with a couple of exhibits on the ground floor. At this point I whipped out my guidebook to see that the real exhibit was at Il Duomo...which was a half mile backtrack to where we came from.


Il Duomo...finally Shroud search 2006 is done!
We hightailed it back to Il Duomo and walked in just as mass was starting. They have a copy of the shroud on display (and presumably the real one is stored away somewhere in some kind of climate controlled vault). Patrick and I snapped some pictures, bought a couple post cards from the little old lady at the back, and slipped out.

The Copy...of the Shroud

I'm sure some family paid a lot for this altar. I wonder if it worked? Are they in heaven?
At this point we were very hungry; so we figured we would go back towards the train station and Piazza San Carlo and stop at a restaurant or bar we found on the way. We found a small bar next to a Sushi place that served Focaccia and was playing some very interesting Michael Jackson remixes. Rebecca called us (she was walking around downtown as well) and we were able to direct her to where we were. It was great to see her as we hadn't seen anyone from the mountains team for almost 3 weeks!

Olympic Rings on the Porto Nuovo train station
At this point we decided to join Jess for dinner. I had to run back to the office and finish packing...everyone else was packing up as well.

Packing Insanity. Steve looks remarkably calm.