Cars!

For my milestone 50th post in this blog, let's check out some CARS!

Since we're in the "Motor City" of Italy, there is certainly no shortage of cars of all types. Turin is home to the Italian auto manufacturers Fiat, Lancia, and Alfa Romeo, and you definitely see a lot of these cars around town. Fiat, in particular, is by far the most popular car brand in Italy, as their cars are very economical and practical. Outside of Italy, though, it is almost unheard of.

If you're looking for a sexy Italian car, you'll want to avoid Fiat, whose cars are more ordinary and definitely geared to those who just want a car to drive places. Most of the Fiats are not too interesting, at least to look at. This one had a cute name though. Panda!

This Fiat, the Multipla, is what Fernando calls "the Beluga." It reminds me a little of the Honda Element in that it looks funny, but if you look inside, there is TONS of space.

And here is a cute older model of the Fiat Cinquecento, a tiny, tiny city car that is one of the most popular models.

After the Fiats, most of the cars here are Alfa Romeos, which are presumably more expensive as they are more showy. They can easily be recognized by the inverted triangular grill on the nose. This car must be both luxurious and powerful.

There are a handful of really nice Alfa Romeos in town, but most of the nice cars here are actually German - BMWs, Audis, and Mercedes. These two BMW two-seaters seem to have engines that are bigger than the rest of the car.

And occasionally, you'll see the top-of-the-line Ferrari, Lamborghini, or in this case, Maserati. We see this car parked on our street once in a while, as well as another black Maserati. We wonder if they are owned by the same person...

And while the trademark "Italian" color for a nice car like this is bright red, I have yet to see a car of that color! It seems like the people with the nice cars opt for more muted colors like black, white, gray, and dark blue. The cars I have seen with the crazy, bright colors have been "belugas."

I don't know why this truck has three wheels instead of four.

On our trip to Monaco, we saw an unsurprising number of nice cars. It's Monaco!

And back in Turin, here we are by a police station. Did you know that Italy has two police forces? The polizia are the civilian police that respond to medium-level tasks (the fire department takes care of the easier things), while the carabinieri are the military police who do the more dangerous things. The carabinieri don't bug people, but you definitely don't want to mess with them. They were originally created to take care of the mafia, so even though they walk around the streets sometimes armed with shotguns, I guess I do feel safer with them around.

Anyway, this truck here was parked outside a polizia station by a tourist attraction, but I would have thought that this is something that the carabinieri would use.