What a day! Due to some train logistics, a few weeks back, we learned that we’d have to overnight in Torino/Turin, Italy. This was both fun and exciting, but also a little unknown (which probably made it just more fun and exciting). Not a lot is known about Torino. Our Rick Steves’ Italy book skips it altogether. A relative who has traveled the area referred to it as industrial. A few blogs I found referred to it as the, “Detroit of Italy”. Awesome. Where have I sent us?! All of Italy and we’re going to overnight in Detroit. Whoops.
As it turns out, this was quite far from a whoops! Torino is great! It has about a million people and doesn’t appear to be well touristed.
First awesome thing: they also have a bike share system. The bikes were definitely more run down than Paris, but they were a bit more real too. Gears, classic frames, less plastic. We didn’t use them, but I’m happy to note that we’re 3/3 in cities we’ve visited on this trip with bike systems. Nice!
Second, the hostel we stayed at was incredible. The Tomato Backpackers Hostel is in the middle of the San Salvario neighborhood, which was close to both the train station and some cool old buildings. The people that run the hostel were probably only a few years older than us. This place was smaller than Clink in London, but just as trendy if not more so. More than that though, the hosts were incredibly nice and so helpful. We could have stayed there for a week!
Third, Torino seems it have some great sights, parks, and museums. I’d totally come back. We went on a great walk his morning that took us along the Fiume (river) Po and all around town. So cool!