We took the train to Turin today, a trip of a little over an hour. Turin is the capital city of Italy’s Piedmont area and like every other city and town we have visited, it is beautiful. As the train got closer to Turin, we could see the snow-covered Alps in the distance.

Turin is a big city and needs more than a day trip to see everything, but we got a nice feel for life there. The giant squares – piazzas – look to be used for festivals and gathering, and today were crisscrossed with what seemed to be university students .

We visited the Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento, a beautiful building with portraits and artifacts of Italy’s 19th century history. That took most of the afternoon after a pizza lunch at midday.

We planned to take a 4:30 train back to Alba, but didn’t realize there are two huge train stations in the city and we were in the wrong one. We left on a train an hour later than we planned and our stuffed-full- with-people train reminded me of Friday nights of long, long ago on the Long Island Railroad.

photos: one of the piazzas in the city; ready for Halloween in a big way; the ceiling in a room of the museum