Fancy

Turin's iconic building is the Mole Antonelliana - the 19th century synagogue-turned-film-museum that features on the back of the national 2c coin and provides a spire that is a landmark all over the city, though it is surprisingly difficult to photograph. The architect who designed it (Antonelli) also designed this as a young man. You would have thought the Jewish community who rejected his synagogue might have looked at this first, and had second thoughts

I've warmed to this city's sense of humour; they call this the "slice of polenta". The young archiect was gifted an unusable plot as a bonus by the developers he was commissioned by: 5 metres wide at one end, but only 54cm at the other. So he decided to put a seven storey building on it; of course he did. This is the pointy end. Even having seen it, I find the illusion that the top storeys are just a wall unshakeabke. Everyone thought he was mad (well, maybe) and it would fall over. He lived in it for a year to prove his confidence in his work (and milk the publicity? How could you possibly think that?) To be fair to him, it's hard to argue with 180 years of evidence

A few oddities: in two days walking around the city, we have not seen a single cat, pampered nor feral. I can see that a city of 5 or 6 storey appartments is not a perfect environment, but I still think there is more to it than that

One of the joys here has been hearing the calls of many swifts above the noise of the city - particularly at dawn and dusk - many weeks before we expect them in England. Thanks to Helen Macdonald, we know that they indulge in vesper flights. I don't claim we have seen the phenomenon, but we have certainly seen a lot of aerial acrobatics before they roost in the gap (which they must see as a perfectly designed home) between the balcony floor of one apartment and the ornate window lintel of the one below. I couldn't resist the pun in the extra

We have also seen a lot of bats - now much rarer in our rural English village than they were ten years ago. They, also, find places to roost in the interstices between the ornamentation, the shutters and the overhangs in the courtyards within the blocks of buildings. Swifts and bats are reassuring, because we have not seen that many insects:  a few mosquitos, a couple of ants, a beetle and one hornet today, but no butterflies, despite a half-hour in the Botanic Garden