Olympic host

TURIN, Italy – The name of this city’s most famous artifact works on multiple levels. It is a shroud – the supposed burial cloth of Jesus – and it’s shrouded in secrecy: housed in a locked casket in a sealed chamber in Turin’s cathedral, displayed every decade or two on order of the pope.

The Holy Shroud is said to have arrived in Turin in the 16th century, and a more fitting home it could not have. This elegant city is tucked in the northwest corner of Italy, far from the traveler’s corridor that extends from Rome to Florence to Venice.

But the veil comes off Turin in February, when the Winter Olympics – packing an estimated 1 million spectators, 10,000 media members and 2,500 athletes – descend on the land of Fiat, Tic Tacs, Nutella and Juventus, the legendary Italian soccer team.

Home to about 900,000 residents, Turin (Torino in Italian) is the largest city to host a Winter Games. And unlike Salt Lake City and Lillehammer, Norway, it possesses enough history and culture to stand as a tourist destination without the Olympics.

I spent several days in Turin this summer with my wife, Rachel, and two things were instantly apparent: a refreshing dearth of tourists and an endless series of construction projects. Turin is spending about $5 billion to build housing and upgrade its transportation; this includes adding a subway system and moving the train lines underground.

The city doesn’t view the Games as an end, but as a means to join Venice, Florence and Rome on the world stage.

“There is a process of transformation for the city, of which the Olympics is a part,” said Mary Villa of the Turin Olympic Committee. “We want to go from 100 percent industrial to industry, tourism and innovation.”

The requisite ingredients – world-class museums, stunning baroque architecture and superb restaurants – are in place. It’s Italy with a Parisian twist: wide boulevards, arcade-lined streets and a flourishing cafe culture. (French, not English, is the second language.)

Turin’s version of the Champs-Elysees is the Via Roma. It has a profusion of designer stores and connects the enormous Piazza Castello, the central square that will serve as site of the medals ceremonies, with Piazza San Carlo, the food-and-drink mecca.

I can’t think of a better way to cap a night of Olympic viewing than to people-watch and sip a bicerin, a combination of coffee, chocolate, milk and cream, at the 200-year-old Caffe San Carlo. (Actually, I can: people-watch and eat chocolate from the famed sweet shop Stratta, on the other side of the piazza.)

Turin is loaded with quaint neighborhoods. One night we strolled through the ultra-trendy Quadrilatero Romano, in the northwest corner of the city center. The restaurants offered a screaming deal for those who aren’t famished: buy one drink, get the antipasto bar for free. We chose the rustic Tre Galli and its wide-ranging menu. I had the steak, Rachel the pasta; we also ordered a terrific salad with cheese and strawberries.

Another night, we headed east to Porto di Savona for a traditional northwest Italian meal. I inhaled the veal, simply prepared with salt and olive oil, while Rachel had gnocchi with gorgonzola. The sauce was mild, but they provided extra cheese on the side. We topped off the evening at Fiorio, which many consider the best of the city’s gelaterie.

Most of Turin’s tourist sites are on or near the Piazza Castello. The gaudy Palazzo Reale dominates on the north end and contains dozens of displays, including a collection of Chinese vases; tours are available, but only in Italian. One wing of the Palazzo houses the Armeria Reale, which, thanks to the House of Savoy, has one of Europe’s best collections of armaments.

A few blocks south of the Piazza, on Via Accademia delle Scienze, is the Museo Egizio and its 30,000-plus artifacts. Turin officials consider it the equal of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the British Museum in London, thanks in part to the statues of Ramses II and the sarcophagus of Nefertiti. Although the Museo doesn’t have a headliner to match the Rosetta Stone (London) or King Tut’s gold (Cairo), it’s certainly worth an hour or two.

If Turin has a hole in its game, it’s the lack of a world-class art museum. The Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna, in the southwest corner of the city center, has works by Chagall, Klee and Renoir, but it’s not a must-see.

Of course, Turin has something Paris and Florence don’t: the most famous piece of cloth in Christendom.

The Holy Shroud is sealed away in the Duomo di San Giovanni, a 15-minute walk west of the Piazza Castello. City officials doubt it will be on display during the Olympics, but a full-size copy hangs to the left as you enter the cathedral.

There’s clearly an image on the cloth; it’s just that no one knows whose image. (When I suggested shaggy Boston Red Sox outfielder Johnny Damon, the guide, who must have been a Yankees fan, ignored me.)

Is this really the shroud Joseph of Arimathea used to wrap the body of Jesus after the Crucifixion, or history’s greatest hoax? Some believe it’s a primitive photograph taken by Leonardo. Radio-carbon dating performed in the 1980s pegged the shroud’s age to the 14th century, but a subsequent fire has given true believers a morsel of hope: The heat could have altered the molecules and contaminated the radio-carbon results.

If you need more shroud lore, wander west to the Museum of the Holy Shroud, on Via San Domenico. There’s a short film that explains the cloth’s markings – in mind-numbing detail – and several displays of souvenirs from the shroud’s public appearances, which are as frequent as J.D. Salinger’s.

There are two other museums worth visiting, one off the map and the other offbeat. The Museo dell’Automobile is two miles south of the city center, on Corso Unita d’Italia. There are hundreds of vintage cars, including Maseratis and Fiats. (Useless fact of the day: Fiat is an acronym for Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino.) The museum’s marquee attraction is the Isotta Franchini driven by Gloria Swanson in “Sunset Boulevard.”

The most entertaining museum in Turin, by far, has nothing to do with artwork, armaments or artifacts. It’s the Museo Nazionale del Cinema, a few blocks east of the Piazza Castello on Via Montebello. The name is a bit misleading in that it traces the history of both Italian and international film.

You want scripts? It has “Citizen Kane” in Italian and the original “King Kong.” You want props? It has a Darth Vader mask made from the original mold. You want animation? It has original “Pinocchio” drawings on celluloid.

There’s a display on the merchandising of “Star Wars,” called Plastic Wars. The upper walkways are lined with American movie posters translated into Italian, including “L’Uomo Bicentenario” (“Bicentennial Man”), “Balle Spaziali” (“Spaceballs”) and “Il Terminator.”

The top floor has a haunting series of displays on the history of television, from the small black-and-whites of the 1950s to the wide screens of today. The final display, on reality TV, has 20 televisions looking at the walkway and an inscription that reads: “Instead of us watching TV, it’s TV watching us.”

In less than six months, Turin steps onto the screen.