Italy to Santiago II Part 1: Via Domitia Day 6: Torino - Rivoli

Oggi molti considererebbero camminare per ore un atto eroico, insolito.
E invece… camminare è la cosa più naturale del mondo.
È usare le gambe, guardare con gli occhi non per vedere, ma per osservare.
Perché tutti vediamo, ma pochi osservano davvero.

(Many people now view walking for hours on end as something unusual and heroic. But actually, walking is the most natural thing in the world. It's a matter of using your legs and looking with your eyes, not to see, but to observe. Because we all look, but few truly observe.)  

- Edoardo, pilgrim on foot from Salerno to Santiago, 2026 (nowayedo.it)

Many people now would definitely view walking for hours on end through the streets of a big city like Turin as something unusual.... and possibly silly, rather than heroic! Asphalt, traffic, roadworks, polluted air... But the pilgrim walks the whole way, without feeling a need to get on a bus or metro train to skip the big city and its sprawling outskirts. 

We attempted to optimise this urban stage by taking an alternative route that follows the river Dora and passes through several city parks rather than taking the shortest possible route straight along Corso Francia, a 12 kilometre long avenue connecting central Turin with Rivoli.

We set off at our usual starting time, eight o'clock, but without our backpacks and in city clothes and shoes, planning to return to our friend Laura's apartment by bus at the end of the day. 

Following the Dora river, we soon came to the place where I would have been staying if it weren't for Laura's invitation: Sermig - Arsenale della Pace.  Built in 1580 as a gunpowder factory, the building burnt down in 1852 and was then converted into the Arsenal of the Artillery of Turin, Italy's first weapons factory, at the behest of king Victor Emmanuel II. The new complex covered an area of 45,000 square metres and employed up to 5000 workers. Many of the weapons used first by the Savoy army and then Italy during the battles of the unification and both World Wars were produced there. After being abandoned at the end of the Second World War, the Arsenal was given to the young people of the association Sermig, who transformed it into a place of peace. A thousand people of all ages came from all over Italy and even from abroad to volunteer in the renovation work, creating the Arsenal of Peace: a house that is always open, ready to help anyone in need of  medical assistance, a roof or a job, and the heart of a network of solidarity that has spread all around the world. The complex includes a guesthouse open to visitors to the city of Turin - including but not limited to passing pilgrims!

The complex is so large we had to cross the river to get past it - it takes up all the space on the river bank. We continued past former industrial estates, now dismantled, and through a vast park - Turin is a very green city - before emerging onto a cycling track beside a major road that took us all the way out of Turin and into Collegno. 

Collegno originated as the Roman mansio of Quintum Collegium (hence the modern name), but is now home to an ultra-modern aerospace industry involved in space exploration - which evidently sponsored the decorations in the roundabouts! 

Collegno is best known for its Certosa (Charterhouse), founded in 1641 by Maria Cristina of France and run by the Carthusians until Napoleon came along and shut it down in 1802. Reopened in 1816 by the Savoy family, the complex housed an asylum from 1853 until Italy's insane asylums were all closed by law in the 1970s. We stopped for a picnic in the park that surrounds the complex, but did not stray from our path to see it as we were not sure we would be able to get in, as the Certosa now houses the town's municipal offices and administrative offices for medical services, and these would all have been closed on a Sunday. Our energy levels were beginning to flag, so we cut across to Corso Francia to walk the more direct but less scenic route the rest of the way to our destination. 

Most of this route was characterised by modern highrises alternating with decrepit old buildings, with businesses strung out along the street here and there, almost all shut for Sunday, and roadworks construction sites at regular intervals where the stations of a new metro line are being built. But we did come across one more interesting historic site, Villaggio Leumann. 

The Leumann Workers' Village was built between the late 19th and early 20th centuries to provide housing for workers in the cotton mill founded in 1875 by Swiss entrepreneurs Isaac Leumann and his son Napoleone. The complex — comprising private homes, social services, recreational facilities, and the textile plant itself — covers a total area of ​​approximately 60,000 square metres. An expression of 19th-century entrepreneurial philanthropy, Villaggio Leumann was built to attract a dependable workforce at a time when the availability of labour was often unstable due to the workers' traditional engagement in agriculture. One of the designers of the village was Pietro Fenoglio (1865–1927), a leading figure in the Liberty style in Turin.

Tours of the village are given regularly, and one was due to begin in an hour - but we had an appointment to keep, so after a short break we continued on to the next bus stop and spent an hour travelling back to central Turin by bus. Here we met my son Davide, who had just got off a plane and was about to get onto a train but had one hour of free time to spend with his Mum in between!

Torino - Rivoli 18.5 km