Torino - More Beautiful Churches

In Athens, there were hundreds of churches, pretty much on every corner, some of them dating back to 1100AD. They were beautiful, but most of them were small. In Torino, most of the churches are huge, and elaborately decorated on the inside, even if sometimes the outside looks rather plain.

It's funny, you can get so used to seeing such beauty, that you might walk into a 500 year old church and just think, OK, here's yet another gorgeous churh (yawn)...

Earlier, I had shown a photo of the twin churches of San Carlo and Santa Christina. Here's a closer look at the facade on the front of Santa Christana (one of the few churches I have seen with a lot of attention paid to the outside of the building)...



Around the back, there is an enormous statue and fountain, presumably of Santa Christina herself (although it seems odd to show a Saint in the nude?). You can't really get a good idea of the scale from this photo, but her arm is about the same size as me...



Inside the Santa Christina, the church is spectacularly decorated from floor to ceiling...



Next door is San Carlo, which has a similar statue and fountain at the back. It's facade is less elaborate that Santa Christina, but the inside is comparable in beauty...



Further east, and across the river Po, there is the Chiesa della Gran Madre di Dio (Church of the Great Mother of God). It is a commanding looking building at the foot of the bridge facing the river...



The inside is cavernous, and more sedately furnished than the twin churches...



From the Gran Madre, you can walk up into the hills on the east side of the river. Whereas the west side of Torino has the downtown and many, many apartments, and blocks and blocks of portico'd shopping districts. The hills on the east side are more sparsely populated, and contain many more standalone houses (BIG houses), so this appears to be the affluent suburbs (kind of like the Hollywood hills, I would guess).

On the way up into the hills, there is the Monte dei Cappuccini (Cappuccino Monks) and the church of Santa Maria del Monte...



The church is lit up at night (you can see the glowing discs suspended in the air in the picture), and the inside is, again, bigger than you might expect, and just as beautiful...



The church is attached to a museum dedicated to the mountains, and the history of the exploration of the alps. There is an observation deck on top of the museum that has spectacular views of the city (see my next post).

Here's one last photo of a pretty good looking church...



OK, that one's not in Italy, it's Trinity United Church in Newmarket!