›› Photo gallery: 'Magical' Turin

TURIN, ITALY - Thousands of people flock to Turin each year for Halloween because of the city's reputation as a world center of white and black magic.

In fact, one of the most popular tours, which usually sells out, is the "Evening Tour of Magical Turin." This fascinating tour begins at 9 p.m. and lasts for 2½ hours.

Tour guides and locals make much of Turin's location - the 45th parallel - and its supposed connection to a black magic triangle that stretches to London and San Francisco, and a white magic triangle that includes Prague and Lyon (in France).

Just for starters, the Celts used to live in the Piedmont area where Turin is located, before the Romans and others displaced. The high priests of the Celts were called druids, who allegedly performed human sacrifices, according to the Romans.

The mystical seems marks the entire city. Turin was the first capital of Italy. It is located by the Alps, near the French border, in the northwestern end of the Italy.

For starters, the famous seer Nostradamus once lived in Turin, attending to the needs of the royals.

It is the home of the Shroud of Turin, an alleged cloth that covered the body of Jesus Christ. My tour guide said the House of Savoy brought the shroud from France when the powerful royal family moved to Italy.


The Savoys believed the cloth possessed healing properties, and used it for themselves and their friends. Eventually, they gave the shroud to the Vatican, which allows it to be on public display every few years.

The next showing is scheduled for 2025, but visitors can see a replica at the Shroud of Turin Museum. Interestingly, the chapel next to the museum has a portrait of Mexico's Virgen de Guadalupe, which surprises visitors, both local and from other countries.

Reporter Diana Washington Valdez stands underneath a replica of the Shroud of Turin.
Reporter Diana Washington Valdez stands underneath a replica of the Shroud of Turin. (Courtesy Diana Washington Valdez)

One of the local churches is supposed to have a piece of the wooden cross from the crucifixion of Christ, while legend has it that the holy grail (the cup that Christ used at the last supper) is buried beneath the Gran Madre di Dio Catholic Church. Some say the Gran Madre di Dio church was designed to look more like a temple of the Roman or Greek periods than a typical Catholic Church.MP

Most churches in Turin are anything but typical. For example, many tourists go to the San Lorenzo Church, with its impressive dome, to watch the sunlight hit the glass in certain ways only during the winter and summer solstice.

The first stop of the city's magical tour begins at the Piazza Statuto, on a former execution site that some refer to as the "gates of hell." The monument there was dedicated to men who lost their lives while working on a tunnel to connect Italy and France. At the top of the monument is a unique statue of an angel with a crown of stars that tour guides say actually represents Lucifer.

The magic tour includes stops along the way to look at buildings with Masonic symbols, gargoyles and other intriguing designs.

Tour guides say that government officials had to shut down the city's cemetery because Satanists were using it for black masses. The city now uses the cemetery grounds for civic events.

"I have eye-witness testimony that a Black Mass was performed by a grotto of the Church of Satan in Turin in 1989," Occult research expert Leo Ruickbie said in a 2006 Gannett News Service story.

Ruickbie also told the news service that "There was even a wild claim made in the late 1980s of some 30,000 practicing Satanists in Turin alone," but that he did not give much credence to that.

The world's most important Egyptian museum after the one in Cairo is also in Turin. Its collection includes the Book of the Dead, which is supposed to generate negative energy, and goes on display only for short periods.

The reason? The museum wants to discourage people from copying the hieroglyphics that detail certain rituals.

Coincidentally, the Museo Egizo is sponsoring a presentation by an Egyptologist on Halloween and the next couple of days on "Forces and Divine Spells," according to the museum's website. 

Turin is the home of the Fiat automaker. Locals say it is also where vermouth first was concocted. Thanks in part to celebrations for the 150th anniversary of Italy's Reunification; the city is enjoying a big boost in tourism.
