Torino - The good, the bad, the ugly!

As the Games are winding down, some of our staff is starting to depart back to the States already. Reminiscing over our experiences in Torino and the uniqueness of this city, we’ve come up with the good, bad, and ugly of Torino, Italy.

The good – almost too numerous to mention!
- Without a doubt, the pasta (never overcooked)
- Chocolate
- coffee (oh, the coffee!)
- wine
- architecture
- public transport
- leisurely dining
- divine gelato
- lots of walking
- families hanging out together
- recycle bins everywhere
- friendly folks
- family-run restaurants (like being at home, but you don’t have to do the dishes)

The bad
- even with many areas of beautiful, historical architecture, Torino is still a polluted, industrial city
- leisurely dining (a double-edged sword!)
- Italian driving (notice the car parked on the sidewalk in the picture)
- warm milk (and forget about finding skim)
- no breakfasts (unless you consider coffee and cigarettes a complete meal)
- no dinner before 7:00 p.m.
- afternoon siesta (will always fall at the only time you have available to conduct business)
- invisible street signs (do they really think a stone sign with 12-point font letters stands out against stone?) Try to find the street name in the picture of the street corner. Now imagine trying to read that at 60 kph with cars honking all around you!

The ugly
- Kleenex full of black, pollution-saturated snot at the end of each day
- public transport (another double-edged sword!)
- dog poop on EVERY walking surface in the city
- pointy shoes (OK, matter of personal opinion)
- relentless traffic noise (Italians love their horns!)
- although not as common as in more Eastern countries, I’ve run into a few of these toilets in Torino (see picture). You don’t bring reading material into these unless you’ve got thigh muscles like Hercules!!