Turin: Borgo Medievale and other sights

 

The Castello

Today's plan was to get a cab to the Borgo Medievale, which is at one end of the Parco del Valentino,  and walk back to our hotel. The Borgo Medievale was built for the Italian General Exhibition of 1884 and features reproductions of 15th century buildings and furnishings in the style of Piedmont and the Aosta Valley. We started by admiring the dramatic Castello and then walked round to the right to find the entrance on the banks of the River Po. This rather lovely panel marked the spot.

Inside (which is free unless you want a guided tour) there is effectively a medieval street. You first notice a church with a facade partially in terracotta and covered in frescoes.

Further along a house with an overhanging first floor supported on massive columns

It is very quiet this morning and we pretty much have the place to ourselves. Looking back it becomes clear that thee are delightful frescoes on the end of the building opposite.

The final gateway has more lovely frescoes.

Leaving the Borgo we continue along the banks of the Po - the longest river in Italy, rising in the Alps and reaching the Adriatic over 400 miles later. Here is it quite wide and slow moving.

As we approach the Vittorio Emanuele bridge, the Church of Santa Maria al Monte dei Cappuccini, a late 16th century Capuchin monastery, dominates a hill on the opposite side of the river.

As we reached the north end of the Park we were surprised to this splendid arch. It seems to be called the Monumental Arch the Weapon of Artillery (which feels like a poor translation). It dates from 1930 - and features lots pf weapons, including cannon.

We headed along via P and via san Massimo (leading into via Montebello) to reach one of Turin's most famous buildings: the strangely named Mole Antonelliana. Thsi was our first view from the rear.

It is named for its architect, Alessandro Antonelli - a mole in Italian is a monumental building. It certainly justifies its name. It was conceived as a synagogue at a time when Turin was briefly the capital of Italy. The architects desire for an enormous building eventually led to the Jewish community abandoning the project and the city took it over as a museum. It is now the National Museum of the Cinema. It is 167.5 m (550 ft) high and is the tallest un-reinforced brick building in the world (it was built without a steel girder skeleton). Apparently you see the Alps from the viewing point at the top.

To complete our walk we visited the Museo Egizio - the Egyptian Museum. We had read about it and thought it might be worth a look. It is in fact completely astonishing, as good a museum as you could find anywhere. The closest thing to a drawback is that it is very popular with school parties.

It was founded in 1824, but grew sharply between 1903 and 1937, when the archaeological excavations conducted in Egypt by Ernesto Schiaparelli and then by Giulio Farina brought some 30,000 artifacts to Turin. The route through the museum is chronological, starting with artifacts from the 4th century BC like this wonderful seated figure.

The routing is slightly confusing in places but you end up in the incredible Gallery of Kings.

One of my favourites was this statue of Pharaoh Horemheb and the god Amun (Amun is on the left - he is bigger because he is more more important)

Conditions: hot and sunny.

Distance: about 3 miles.

Rating: four stars. Interesting and varied.

Greece: The Acropolis of Athens and the Acropolis Museum

The Acropolis seen from the Agora

We arrived in Athens last night and our first major piece of tourism was to visit the Acropolis. I have headed this post "The Acropolis of Athens" because it turns out that there are numerous acropolises in Greece - the term means the highest point of a city, a citadel. Athens of course is home to The Acropolis.

We soon realised that because Athens is quite a low-rise city, it is completely dominated by the Acropolis which is visible from almost anywhere. The best view seems to be from the Agora however.

From the coach park you walk uphill through an olive grove ...

 ... and enter the Acropolis via the Beulé Gate. Immediately on the right is the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, which dates from 161 AD; that is, when Greece was under the Roman Empire.. It was destroyed by barbarians (in this case the Heruli) in 267 AD and restored in 1950. It is still used for music concerts.

Further up you reach the entrance to the Acropolis, the Propylaea (the work of the architect Mnesikles, and built 437-32 BC). It is a pinch point and very congested. It is quite hard to make sense of all the columns.

Immediately on the right as you enter is the exquisite temple of Athena Nike (nike means Victory). It was designed by the architect of the Parthenon, Kallikrates, completed in 420 BC and built in Pentelic marble.   There are only four columns at each end (and none on the sides) and unusually they are monolithic, that is they are each made of a single block of stone instead of the usual horizontal drums. There is a rather beautiful frieze below the triangular pediment.

Turning away from the Temple of Athena Nike, you are confronted by the massive Parthenon. It was built in only 15 years between 447 BC and 432 BC and is often described as the most perfect Doric temple ever built. Nowadays, it is still undergoing a process of restoration and has a great deal of scaffolding around it. There is an enormous amount of stone scattered all around, some with beautiful carving.

It gradually became clear that the best strategy would be to walk around to the south (?)  and see it from the rear. This offers a much more coherent view and the scaffolding is obscured.

... and the Parthenon Museum  (of which more later).

You can also see the Roman Forum with the wonderful Temple of Hephaestus in the top left. We plan to visit this tomorrow.

The final great building on the Acopolis is the Erechtheion, completed in 406 BC. It was built as a sanctuary for the cults of all the deities ever worshipped in Athens, which explains its odd shape.

Its greatest feature is the caryatids who hold up the roof  - a caryatid is a column sculpted in the form of a woman or girl. (We felt a special affinity with these having enjoyed St Pancras church (1822) in Euston Road in London which has a very similar set, undoubtedly inspired by these.)

We dragged ourselves away from the Acropolis and walked down to the Museum. It is aligned spatially with the Parthenon and inside it has the same number of (steel) columns with the same spacing as in the Parthenon. It is a truly visionary concept. On the top floor the metopes (carved stone panels) are arranged in their original order (having been removed from the Parthenon itself to prevent further deterioration and cleaned up).

Many of these metopes contain sculpture of the highest order and being at a modest height above the floor they are much easier to really appreciate than when they were high up on the temple's exterior.

Finally, on the second floor, we saw the original caryatids from the Erechtheion. They too have been removed for their protection and replaced with replicas.

Conditions: hot and sunny.

Rating: five stars. Truly wonderful!