The wide squares and colonnades were all deathly quiet. Turin's renowned clothes shops had shut their doors and only every fourth cafe was open for business. The city's superior restaurants looked impregnable too. Their metal grilles were drawn to the ground and all that Piedmontese cuisine, from the humble grisi ni upwards, had been locked away. It might be August, but this was no explanation for the preternatural hush on every street.
Then, swinging around the corner of the central piazza, came a long line of uniformed Polish scouts. Several were waving flags and they were closely followed by a colourful procession of pilgrims from all over the world. This mid-summer city was not as deserted as it had appeared. The assorted Christian pilgrims were, in fact, in town to view the item that's still most frequently associated with Turin - not the Fiat motor car but The Holy Shroud.
A 14ft strip of linen, known in Italian as the sindone, the Shroud has rarely been on show since it was damaged by fire in 1997. Last month though, it came back under the public gaze for the Feast of the Assumption as part of the Catholic Church's millennial celebrations.
The special exhibition, which runs until 22 October, has been arranged with great style. Visitors book their appointment at a smart wooden hut erected just off the Piazza Castello. The tickets, or rather appointment slips, are free, but your eventual encounter with the Shroud will not be quite as intimate as this makes it sound. Returning at the allotted time, you will join a queue of devout pilgrims and idle tourists slowly wending their way through the grounds of the Palazzo Reale (at one time the seat of the Italian Royal family). Midway along the route, a multilingual slide show explains the nature of the exhibit ahead. The winding sheet, you are instructed, bears two faded, sepia impressions, both back and front, of a naked, bearded man. Dark patches on the neck and the brow denote the putative thorn scratches, and the sites of the stigmata and the lance wound which are described in the Gospels are also faintly visible.
Inside the chapel where the shroud is housed the atmosphere is respectfully calm. Whatever your perspective, this piece of cloth is intriguing and important.
A hundred years ago a Frenchman was one of the first modern scientists to argue that the marks on the shroud really had been made by the body of Jesus Christ. Since then rival theories have abounded. Earlier this year, for instance, a new book claimed once again that the winding sheet was genuine after all and not a fourteenth-century fake. Scientists had found plant seeds from Palestine woven into its threads. The blood group of the dead man has also now been isolated as AB, a much rarer group among Europeans than it is among Middle Eastern Jews. Whether or not you buy the Shroud's authenticity, its story is a fascinating history of religious fervour - and in Turin this summer you could sense that fervour all around you.
A religious relic of doubtful provenance is not the city's only draw. For the more worldly, Turin's most appealing new attraction must certainly be the Mole. It might have an unprepossessing name but the Mole is in fact Italy's national museum of cinema and it is a fantastically imaginatively designed experience. The tall spire of the building is the dominant feature of Turin's skyline and it was originally constructed as a synagogue. Now, however, a dramatic glass lift takes you up through the centre of a hi-tech museum, offering panoramic views of the city from the top before you then walk a spiral route down through the exhibition itself. Excerpts from famous moments of world cinema are screened in cleverly themed alcoves and, at the end of the display, visitors are invited to lie back on a comfortable couch and watch more film footage on screens hanging from the wall.
Although Turin is sometimes described as Italy's answer to Birmingham its centre is far from industrial. There are no skyscrapers and the central piazzas are among the grandest in the country. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, under the Dukes of Savoy, the city was the capital of their northern Italian kingdom and it was also, briefly, the capital of a united Italy. The parliament chamber from this period has been preserved intact inside the Museum of the Risorgimento.
Although the August festival weekend may not be the best time to turn up, even then it is possible to track down a few superb restaurants that are still open. And when you do find somewhere that is serving - as one waiter in an empty palazzo noted - the personal service you get!
If you can't stand the summer heat you can always - like the Torinesi - head for the mountains. On feast days they stock up with barbecue provisions and drive up to picnic next to amazing views such as those in the Susa valley below the monastery of San Michele, the dramatic symbol of the region.
Returning to a cinematic theme, some of these mountain roads will be quite familiar to many first-time visitors.
So too will some of Turin's central avenues. Thirty years ago the makers of the Michael Caine heist movie, The Italian Job, used the city and its precipitous surroundings as the location for some of the best-known car chases on film.
Getting there
Vanessa Thorpe's visit to Turin was organised by Travelscene (020 8427 8800). She travelled with Ryanair from London Stansted and stayed at the three-star Victoria Hotel, a Travelscene 'Little Gem'. Two-night midweek Travelscene breaks at this hotel cost from £269 per person based on two adults sharing and including bed and breakfast accommodation and return scheduled flights.
Holy Shroud office: for booking online see website www.sindone.org
The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence , by Ian Wilson and Barrie Schwortz.
