TORINO 2010

Buona Sera!

We are in Turin! (otherwise known as Torino around here). We arrived this morning about 11am and after checking into our hotel- began walking around Torino checking out the stores, famous sights and most important, the Duomo, which is the site of the Shroud of Turin! (Which of course is our main purpose in being here)- and hard as it is to believe, WE SAW IT ALREADY!! Here is the church where it is located. The place is absolutely CRAWLING with pilgrims who have come to Turin to see the Shroud. Funny part is we walked up those stairs, went into the door and they were looping people around the back of the church and out another door- but from the back of the church you could clearly see the Shroud up in the front in its enclosed sealed glass vault, lit from behind- and THOUSANDS of people packed inside there. My mouth fell open- because I never expected to be seeing it already! Our tickets are for tomorrow! So TOMORROW we are getting up at 6am and are heading over to the church cause in our short 18 hours in Torino we've learned that a) they'll let anyone to see the Shroud if they are willing to wait in line so tickets and time schedules really don't matter. Just get there as early as possible and be ready to wait. Since our train leaves tomorrow at 2:05pm, we need to make sure we are through that line. We also learned b) they are giving priority to people with physical disabilities and priests. And there are a LOT of priests around here. However, if you wait in line, you get to go directly to teh front of the church and stand in front of the shroud for about 3 minutes. They say no pictures are allowed, but from what I've read on the internet flashes start going off like crazy. So I think I might just manage a flashless picture of two. :) OK there's a lot of people dressed up as priests around here- but I think they are legitimate. Carol took a picture today for a young priest with four nuns who appeared to be from Spain or Portugal.

I tell you what is absolutely awe inspiring is to see these thousands upon thousands of people lining up to see what is believed to be the burial cloth of Jesus- and you realize that 2,000 years later after his crucification, Jesus can still cause such a stir as to bring nearly 2,000,000 people to Turin, Italy from all over the world in only a 6 week period.