336 hours in Turin: Southern man

I decide to ride to the city’s edge, wherever it may be. In the trip’s final hours, I already have one foot out the door. It is inevitable. You start tidying up in small ways and try to come to terms with the visit’s totality, assigning grades to this afternoon or that, before they all recede into the realm of daydream. The cost of vacationing is always this moment of impending return, the realignment with what had been before and now seems a little less appealing. Years from now these two weeks will seem like a passing silliness. But not now. I flip three coins. South, it is.

What in the world? Well, it’s new to my eye, and that counts for something.

A multi-use path stretches to infinity. These leaves will turn yellow, then orange, then nutty brown in the next several weeks. It must be a sight.

A memorial to 19 Italian soldiers killed in Nassiriya, Iraq, on Nov. 12, 2003, during the hardest fighting of the war.

About 2 p.m., I see hundreds, maybe a thousand, workers stream back into the Fiat factory after their two-hour lunch. I don’t know how economists measure productivity, but these early-afternoon lulls can’t be good for the bottom line. Most non-chain stores are closed from 1 to 3. Maybe productivity isn’t everything? That notion will surely slink away as my old deadlines reassert themselves. For now, it is a sweet, almost guilty, indulgence to see other people toil while you pedal toward the horizon. Sorry, suckahs! The factory complex is immense, stretching on for a mile. The “T” in Fiat stands for “Torino,” and the company recently purchased Chrysler.

“Detroit without the degradation” is how travel writers Dana Facaros and Michael Pauls describe the city. This seems to significantly play down Turin’s charms, but I wish I had come up with it.

Down here, blocks of apartment buildings dominate the skyline, each with its own restaurant, grocery store, nursery school.

Farther south, it is clear Turin has ceded dominion over this part of the city. The grass goes uncut, the sidewalks aren’t repaired, and hoodlums skipping the first day of school scan for easy prey. The stamp of the recession is more indelible down here, too. Many businesses are shuttered, and not just for lunch.

These fountains have rescued me a dozen times. Love ’em, love ’em, love ’em. I call this one Spitting Bull.

Here’s a surprise. The tomb of Rosa Vercellana, second wife of King Vittorio Emanuele II. And that’s how it goes: The big shot spends eternity in Rome’s Pantheon (not at Superga with the rest of his clan, interestingly), and the gal is relegated to a ramshackle replica of the Pantheon in the boonies of Turin.

I’ve made it! The countryside takes shape and the pavement turns to gravel. Non-degraded Detroit is now over my shoulder.

A bridge must be crossed, mustn’t it?

Over the bridge and through the woods, I emerge in the town of Nichelino, with its own rent-a-bikes. Front baskets, rear racks, Shimano components, step-through frames. An elevating sight.

A picture is taken for proof of the journey. When some knucklehead tries to guilt-trip me with the passive-aggressive “So, you stayed in Turin for two weeks?” I can counter, “Not exactly, Dillweed. I also visited Sassi/Superga, Chieri and Nichelino.” So there.

There’s a Fillipo Turati street here, too. I think he was a communist labor organizer. A few communists who slept through 1989 still ply the streets of Turin, trying comically to sell their newspaper. Their predecessors sure were useful during the war, though.

Nichelino appears to be a doughnut city, without a center or any real nutrition for a wandering bicyclist. I head back, through the forest …

Over the bridge …

And back home to a cold bottle of La Mummia, which proved to be a disappointment. The spores Birrifico is using to ferment this should have attenuated it to a puckeringly dry finish, and the carbonation didn’t have the cork-blasting, champagne-y quality it deserves. I honestly think it could benefit from a couple more years on the shelf. It’s a $7 bottle. Good enough for an airport beer but little else. God, I’m a snob.

Having no phone in the apartment, I go to a pay booth to tell Adriano about the Internet key. I can barely make out what he says. That’s odd, it’s all paid up, there’s nothing to be done at this late hour, don’t worry about it. Something like that. This is a loud city. Each morning at 5 the rumbling of the tram reverberates through my pillow, and the honking and sirens start shortly after that.

honks from Sluggh McGee on Vimeo.

About midnight I ride the bicycle to the center. You haven’t lived till you’ve done this. San Carlo: