Why Turin ?
Turin (Turìn in Piedmontese) is a great Italian city, capital of the Piedmont Province which sits at the base of the Italian Alps in northwest Italy. It is the third economic pole of the country.
It is crossed by the river Po and surrounded by the Alpi landscape. Turin is a city, where past and present, history and modernity live together. Monuments, historical cafés and castles, ancient residences show its glorious and magical past: it was the capital of the Duchy of Savoy from 1563, of the Kingdom of Sicily from 1713, of the Kingdom of Sardinia from 1720 and, finally, first capital of Italy from 1861 to 1865. Vitality, innovation – both technological and non-technological – and cultural ferment express its current role as a great European city.
It is one of the biggest university, cultural, touristic and scientific centres of the country. In 2006, it was the seat of the XX Olympic Winter Games. It is the Italian capital of the automotive industry and an important centre for publishing business, telecommunications, cinema, advertising, food-and-wine tourism, design and sport.
Furthermore, Turin is considered all over the world as a magic city because of several features, such as many symbolic statues (rose windows, dragons, big masks, dogs, lions) located in several points of the city and which are considered to have a double value for white or beneficial magic – together with Lyons and Prague – and black or satanic magic – together with London and San Francisco. They are two souls which fight one against the other in order to affirm themselves. But the city is also sitting on the crossing between two rivers, the Po and the Dora Riparia, that represent respectively the Sun and the Moon. However, it is above all a meeting-point of several synchronic lines, showing as Turin represents a geographical site unique in the world.