Not Como: Hiking in Turin

Instead of writing today about our trip to Lake Como like I had previously suggested, I'll show some pictures of a hike that Kristen and I did after work today. We're planning a trip to the real mountains in Bardonecchia, which is a town on the Italian-French border, in the Alps. So this week, we decided to take some hikes as a warmup. We started off today with a trip to the Colle della Maddalena, which is a hill somewhat close to where we live.

On the way to the hill, we passed through the Parco del Valentino, a reasonably large park right by the Po River. In the park was this garden, which I particularly liked because it was elegant rather than showy (which is how I'd describe many gardens out there).

Also in the park was a medieval village, with this castle-looking structure overlooking it.

And this is the Torino Exposition Center.

We reached the foot of the hill and were pleased to see that there was a clear trail towards the top. Along the way, in addition to getting our fair share of exercise, we saw some sights you'd expect to see in a hike through the woods.

The trees curl like an archway!

Don't worry, we didn't need to walk across this, nor was the drop below deep.

Well, it was starting to get a little dark and drizzly, so we didn't make it to the top of the hill. We still got high enough to get a nice view of the city.

And here are some nice pictures from the walk back of the Po River and what I think is the old FIAT factory,

and a giant fountain in the Parco del Valentino that is currently out of service.

On Thursday, we're hoping to go to the Basilica of Superga, which is nicely situated on top of a 400m tall hill. Our climb today was going to be just about that tall, but we didn't go all the way up, probably about 250m. Still, it's nice to work our way up, as we're hoping to climb 700-1000m on Sunday. The climb to Superga will be much different, as we will be walking on a sidewalk instead of a trail, but there will surely be no shortage of things to see, so you can expect a Superga update on Thusrday, after a Lake Como update on Wednesday. Confusing, but too much is happening here!