For previous entries in my Torino Journal, see Day One and Day Two. On Sunday, our third full day in Torino, the conference organized an excursion to see some sights in the area surrounding Torino. We gladly signed up for it when they first announced it, so we needed to get on the bus fairly early in the morning. Unfortunately, we found ourselves moving a little slow that morning so we ended up needing to run for the bus. Thankfully, it hadn't left yet even though we were at least 15 minutes late.

The first sight of the day was Sacra di San Michele (Saint Michael's Abbey) which is a really neat building built on top of a mountain next to the Susa valley. The abbey was an amazing place with many picture worthy moments. Not only was the abbey itself picture worthy, but because of its height over the Susa valley there was some great pictures of the surrounding scenery. In particular, the signature red roofs that are seen everywhere in the architecture in Italy were very appealing from where we were standing. Our tour guide took us right through the abbey, where there was even a choir singing.

Once we were finished at the abbey, we returned to our tour bus which took us down the narrow winding road back down the mountain to our lunch destination which was nicely covered by the excursion which was free for us (I gather the conference footed the bill). The lunch was a full multi course meal with wine and bubbly (frizzante) and normal (naturale) water to drink. The restaurant was a beautiful lake-side location, though it was very warm on very sunny day.

After lunch, we drove a little further down the Susa valley and stopped in a charming little Italian town (I think it was called Susa actually). We wandered along the streets there and took in some of the local attractions including several little churches and some local roman ruins including an aqueduct and a coliseum.

A lot of us were real tired after our excursion so the bus ride back was pretty quiet. Once we got back to town we spent some time working on our program to continue getting it ready for the tournament the next day. So that evening was pretty quiet and wasn't all that exciting.

Up next! The tournament begins! Heraldk