With only one more day to spend with the siblings in Italy, we decide to head to Turin (Torino). This often overlooked town was the capitol of the Northern Roman Empire and the domain of the Savoy dynasty. There are more palaces in and around Turin than you will find in entire countries. The Palazzo Reale and museum are the Crown Jewels of Savoy holdings so we first head there.
The autostrada allows us to make the trip in just over an hour, and the traffic into Turin is light. We luck into an open parking garage adjacent to the palace complex. Aside from the very tight turns into the garage and the fact that we all have to exit the vehicle before my brother pulls into the tiny space, it is an uneventful trip.
The palace is magnificent. However, Turin unlike most Italian cities doesn’t seem to really want or even like tourists. There is almost no signs, maps or guides. When available, signage is in Italian only (which is fine by me, I am after all the foreigner in their midst). If you ask a ticket taker a question you are met with a scowl. No matter. I order dua biglietto and we march on. Crabbiness can not ruin our day.
The rooms of the palace are fully furnished. We see dining rooms, meeting rooms, and throne rooms. Each room contains priceless paintings, tapestries and frescoes. The ceilings are all elaborately painted and usually themed.
Eventually we reach the armory, where we encounter an abundance of medieval weapons and armor. Horses hold riders decked out for battle. There are axes and shields. Swords and bows. Daggers and guns. There is Italian, German, Ottoman, and Turkish weapons. Many of the items are new to me….and I have been in a lot of military museums. I still get a little rush of excitement when I see something I have read about for the first time. This time it is the jousting and sparring equipment used to train young pages hoping to become knights.
After the palace rooms, we visit the chapel Reale, which housed the shroud of Turin on its altar until the 1970’s. The round marble chapel is magnificent with a golden sunburst altarpiece. In each alcove of the round chapel, a giant marble statue marks a grave. The chapel opens onto the larger church of the Duomo di San Giovanni. Parishioners can look upward into the chapel toward the holy shroud.
Just when we think we are done with the palace complex, we come to endless museum galleries containing masterpiece after masterpiece. While the collection is of mainly religious art, it also has portraits and landscapes from across Italian. Raphael’s Venus shows up in a practice painting done before his larger and more famous “Birth of Venus” fresco. There are Rembrandt and Vermeer paintings. We see Caravaggio and Ferrari. Each piece is exquisite and captivating. Centuries old, the paints are vivid and look as if the painter has just finished the piece and walked away minutes ago.
Further along we encounter Roman statues, funerary pieces, Grecian Urns, and other antiquities. I am surprised to find several relics from the cult of Isis. Another encounter with book knowledge made real with access to artifacts.
Worn out, we set out to find food. The waiter chases us away from the back door, so we walk around the castle wall to the front door. We enter only to be ignored. We walk further in to find a table only to be ignored. The waiter scowls and tells us not to block the aisle. The woman at the front tells us we can order to go. I approach the person who appears to be in charge and he agrees to seat us. I sit while he clears the table and begin to look at the menu. The water begins to fuss that there are not enough chairs (one short). I see three empty chairs and am not concerned about procuring a fifth chair. Meanwhile the men in our party decide we can eat outside.
So I have to leave my warm seat in the nice restaurant for a plastic chair in the damp cold air. Once we are seated outside, the same cranky waiter became all smiles. He is from Iran and he loves Americans. He says he wants to leave Turin because the people are grumpy and unfriendly. He makes a show of serving us with “violas” and “aloras”. He pours extra wine and gushes over our food choices.
I am freezing, so the coffee seems like a great idea to wash down my lunch of local cheese and honey. I am still a little unhappy about eating outside on a cold rainy day. I am the grumpy one throughout lunch thinking of other times we have travelled and I missed my restaurant of choice because there is nothing my husband will eat or because it is too crowded or too expensive. I have to check myself and instead enjoy good food and good company between my shivers.
There are more things to see, so we collect our things and leave the palace. We walk across the soggy plaza to the Madama Palace. The ticket taker is rude. I buy tickets. My brother does the same. My sister in law is last in line and gets confused as to which ticket to buy. I return to see if I can help. I hold up my ticket and asked if it gets us in all the rooms. The ticket taker slams down her hand, rolls her eyes and moans “I already sold to you.” I assertively ask for one more ticket and she loudly groans. Ahh Torino.
The Madama palace has been turned into eclectic museum space. Most of the museum is full of ancient treasure, but there are weird and out of place exhibits within some galleries. Rooms with gilded ceilings hold exhibitions on: the finance police, the sea, science, random topics, and modern art. I am looking at a medieval painting in a period room and turn to see a neon science center style exhibit under an elaborate fresco ceiling. There is no warning for the abrupt change in venue.
I love the intricate wood carving, saved from otherwise destroyed churches. The world wars were destructive, but thankfully many pieces were saved. The Byzantine altarpieces in gold leaf and enamel are much brighter than I realized. An art restorer must never be without work in Italy.
One fascinating aspect of the museum is its collection of miniature paintings. Lockets, watches, and pocket pictures are preserved from a time before photographs. In the era of kings, you commissioned an artist to paint your likeness for loved ones. You could pay more to look even better. I don’t know how it was possible to make such an accurate likeness in such a small surface. The best piece is a belt in which the bridal portraits are embedded in the buckle.
We realize that we have spent almost six hours in the museums. It s tiime to head back home. Still, we can’t leave without a trip up and down the grand staircase. We say our farewells and exit the palace. The guards look at us without expression, even as I wish them Buena Sera. I guess they aren’t as taken with us as we were with their palace.
