Summer in the City

Huw Williams | 09:35, Monday 29 July 2013 | Turin, Italy

I think I've said it before, but I've been aware for a long time now how sunshine transforms a city. Sunshine transforms any landscape of course, but for me at least, the urban transformation in Summer is somehow more dramatic than that in the rural scene. After all, out of the city, there can be real beauty and drama in all kinds of weather in the countryside, the coastland, the mountains, but cities need sunshine to redeem them from their dust and grime. 

It's hard to enjoy even the most beautiful of cities in the rain. Whereas in sunlight, the cityscape is altogether more wonderful. 

Torino right now feels like a world away from the grey granite gripped by a long, cold Winter a few months ago. It's as if the architecture itself is more relaxed somehow, it is as though the walls and the pavements breathe more easily – quite an achievement in this heat – and now we can fully appreciate the city's true beauty. The city shines in the sun.

Now is the time for cycling, a delightful way to get around the city in this time of year. The breeze is welcome, as is the exercise, and it is infinitely preferable to the stuffiness of tram carriages.

I am not a natural city-dweller, but I have to remember that the Bible is a book which opens with a garden and ends with a city:-

"One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, 'Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.' And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal." (Rev 21:9-11)