There's a chill in the air
TURIN, Italy — The Winter Games should have brought booming business to Emma Salomone's pastry shop.
"For us it's a disaster," said Salomone, co-owner of the Bignet Cafe, just a few blocks from the Lingotto Oval — the upcoming home of speedskating competition.
Sales of dark rich coffee and luscious pastries handmade by her husband are off by 50 percent, she said. And little more than 24 hours before opening ceremonies, the expression of Olympic fever in this northwest Italian city was decidedly understated.
There are a variety of factors: For one, the Torinesi are notoriously reserved. For another, the weather has not been cooperating. And then there are the ever-changing security measures and street closures that locals are finding plain maddening.
"Everything is closed, we are unable to get around," Salomone said. "It's a problem, it's a problem," she complained. "I'm happy about the Olympics. But Turin isn't used to such radical changes."
A largely unsung city, Turin's predominant reputation was industry and Fiat's auto assembly line. But officials here, through long-standing revitalization, have heralded the ancient city's architectural and artistic landmarks.
Unfortunately, efforts to dress the place up, coupled with final building touches still under way at nearly every Olympic venue, leave a preponderance of construction sites across the city.
In the historic Piazza Castello, the medal ceremony venue is a long way from finished. At the sprawling Lingotto mall, the work site of various Olympic committee offices and thousands of journalists, drills and hammers pound long into the night.
But organizing chief Valentino Castellani sees all problems as little ones. "We will have always some small problems to solve. What is important is to solve them quickly," he said earlier this week.
After a slow climb over several months, ticket sales surpassed 720,000 Wednesday, about 85 percent of the total. Low-price tickets are being offered to local schoolchildren, and extra box offices have been opened to sell hundreds of high-end tickets added Wednesday.
For $130, it was possible to purchase a prime spot to watch the men's downhill on Sunday.
It was also still possible to buy tickets for nearly every sport category from snowboarding to speedskating.
Impossible, apparently, was finding a hotel room at the last minute.
Word on the street was that every room was booked for the duration of the Winter Games, said Paola Piacenza, spokesman for Turin Hotels International, which owns four 4-star hotels in the city.
The weather is another matter entirely. Temperatures are predicted in the mid-30s for the next several days, with clouds — meaning the surrounding mountains will remain shrouded, giving no backdrop to this city nestled below the Alps.
In the Alpine venue of Sestriere, snow remains from a big storm of two weeks ago but it is being mixed with the man-made variety.
In Turin, which got more than a foot of snow from the same storm, nothing is left save a few dirty clumps of shade-bound ice.
Lucia Fino, manager of the Fresco Service grocery south of downtown, says it is just the nature of Torinesi "to be a bit closed" and a bit more reserved than their compatriots in the south. "The Romans are open and happy," she said, laughing. "Here, not so much."
School closings and street closures and traffic confusion have actually helped her small shop, she says, because people do not want to go far from home.
"People are out buying things, stocking up as if they were going to war," she said. "I hope the Olympics make me rich!"
