No Time for Tourism

Posted Feb 21, 2006 by Bill Ward

Updated Feb 21, 2006 at 09:29 PM

1 p.m., central Turin

Every time I go to cover an Olympics, people always say to me “Oh, wow, you’re going to see all the sights and have so much fun and eat at some fabulous restaurants and go to some nightclubs. Can I go with you?” It’s no point telling them how you don’t really have time to take in the sights and nightlife of cities like Sydney, Athens and Turin when you’re covering the Games. Yes, I go to see the famous monuments and buildings, but that’s usually all done in a single day before the Games begin. And even when I do, I always feel rushed, like Chevy Chase in Vacation, when he finally gets to the Grand Canyon, stands there for a few seconds looking at it and says “Ok, kids, we’ve seen it, let’s go.”

Today, I went into central Turin with just a couple of hours to see some sights. I decided I wanted to see the actual medals plaza near Piazza Reale, where they hand out the medals from the previous day’s events in a special ceremony. Along the way, I stopped and took some photos for this blog and for the panoramas I’m making here. If you haven’t seen those panoramas, they’re pretty cool. You can go to my multimedia page and check them out.

Along the way, I saw the usual dozen or so broken down bikes along the sidewalk. These appear to be holdovers from the 1950s. You still see people riding the oldest, rustiest old bikes down the street in traffic here, usually with the rider wearing no helmet. I have yet to see some hi-tech bike or hybrid, like the kind you see being used by couriers in London. Scooters seem to be the preferred mode of transit for the couriers here. Anything is faster than a car. There’s so much traffic here, day and night, I can’t imagine how people stand it. I guess that’s why the trams and buses are always packed to the gills.