Turin is really nice. Even outside of Saturday night, people are crowding the streets and there's a really strong sense of community to everything. This massive market was going on outside my hostel and mostly seemed to be a booksale. I'd have considered buying a book if I could read any of them, but obviously that wasn't the case. There are a few other things in the city I'd like to see, but I was drawn to the idea of getting to the surrounding foothills instead. I found that there's a peak which is relatively accessible by bus and I headed across the river to catch it. It only ran once an hour so there was a while I was just walking up the mountain roads, but eventually they became incredibly narrow and windy and there was no shoulder at all. Every time a car came I'd have to flatten myself against the fencing on the edge of the road since there were only a few inches between me and the lane. The whole excursion reminded me very pleasantly of the early trips we did out to the Port Hills and areas surrounding Christchurch right before covid sent the country into a panic. Eventually I gave up and camped out at the nearest bus stop until it came, and then took it up the mountain to a park. This wasn't my original plan since Google Maps didn't have any of the trails listed, but following a razor of up=good I found a path to the summit pretty quickly.

The view from the top wasn't anything special owing to a dense haze that had descended over the town. That said, the experience of being out and about in a forested park in the Italian countryside was exactly what I needed. There weren't many other people and it was awesome to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city, which is largely something I've yet to escape since arriving in Europe. The parks in Sweden were great, but there's something very distinct about an area that a city has allowed to be natural versus an area that's defied incorporation into the city's matrix. I think this was probably the best thing I could have done with my time, but it does mean that I have very limited opportunity to explore the rest of the city. There are quite a few things that I'd still like to see in Turin, and I probably won't be able to do much of that. I went home and made dinner (chicken is no longer 34 francs a kilo, mercifully) and spent time with the few other people in the now strangely empty hostel. I didn't go out tonight in the hope of getting up earlier tomorrow, but sleep didn't come as easily as I expected to and as I write this it's not especially early.

I'm not sure why more people don't come here. It's a beautiful city with a fair number of things to do, but I've seen almost nothing (outside my hostel) to suggest that tourists ever visit. I guess they're all attracted to the more iconic cities. I'll have a little more time this afternoon and then off to Florence, which I'm really looking forward to. It's almost 5 hours by bus though (I would've used my rail pass but the reservation fee was actually more than the bus ticket) so I won't have much time there tonight. At least I've got two more nights, though I'm thinking of using one of these days to stop by Pisa since it's easily accessed by public transit from Florence. I've found a somewhat expensive place a ways outside Rome (actually one of the cheapest options in the Rome area despite being pricier than anything I've stayed in to this point) that has the highest rating I've ever seen on Hostelworld, so I think I might splurge to stay there for a few nights after. It's apparently a half hour bus to the city, which isn't too bad, and it's in the Italian countryside with lots of farm animals and other amenities like a sauna. I was considering going to San Marino on my way to Venice, but Flixbus doesn't run there and I don't think they have any trains in the whole country (it is a tiny microstate on a mountain, to be fair) so it seems like it probably isn't worth it. I'm sure I could make something work by going to Bologna and then taking a more local bus, but it doesn't seem exciting enough to warrant that. Hopefully the Vatican will satisfy my microstate curiosity. The train to Venice from Rome is under 4 hours, which is less than I expected and seems fairly palatable.