Serendipity in Piemonte
Wednesday, September 11th, 2019
As any reader of my blog knows I spend a lot of time in Torino these days because my “girlfriend†(seems silly to call a 70 year old woman a girl) lives there. We alternate long weekends between Torino and Bologna. So on a recent weekend we were pondering what to do on a lazy Saturday. Another museum (boring), yet another posh residence of a king (tired of viewing their extravagances), return to a beach in Liguria (to rainy)? So we decided to visit a town near Torino which neither of us knew much about. We discussed Ivrea but settled on Susa.
I knew that there was a porta Susa at Torino and it’s the name of one two major train stations. With a little research I found that Susa is in a little valley at the foot of the alps and has a little river running through it. Plus it has a history that predates the Romans who left their marks there. And it’s only about 50 km from (about 30 miles) from Torino. One interesting thing about the town was a lot of these passageways under buildings like the one shown below. I’m guessing it’s because there’s a lot of snow there in the winter.
It’s really a cute little town of about 6,000 inhabitants with the requisite Roman ruins. After a disappointing lunch we went looking for the Roman amphitheater. They could use some better signage for visitors but we finally found it after asking directions from a couple of locals. It was rather underwhelming but is used for various performances which surely makes it more interesting. From there we could see what looked like a very old fortress. I had read that there was a Roman arch in Susa but had seen nothing about a fortress. While we could see the fortress there were absolutely no signs. Again locals came to our rescue pointing to the road (more like a path) to take. There were actually 2 arches the first was much rougher than the triumphal Arch of Augustus build in 8 BC. I actually liked the big rough one the most.
As we walked around the town a did a bit of shopping I kept noticing violet and white ribbons bunched together and we seemingly everywhere. When I first saw these in the restaurant I thought that perhaps they were the celebration of a birth of a child but since they were also along the streets I finally asked a guy what they were about. Because of my heavily accented Italian he tried (without much success) to respond in English until I told him that Laura was Italian. So he explained to her (and I understood absolutely everything that he said) that these were the colors of the “borgo†(borough or district). With some research I found that each year there is a contest of medieval skills in, where else, the roman amphitheater. The competition is between the 6 borgi of the city. The violet and white are the colors of the Borgo Storico, which would be the city center – which won this year.
When Laura asked about the “games†he said with a laugh, “it’s not a game it’s WARâ€. Anyway it’s held in July and I really want to go next year. I recommend that you follow this link to see some photos and videos of this year’s “warâ€. Italian language not required.
