They Back Open-Minded Idea

They finally found something to motivate an Italian populace that had greeted the Olympics with a big shrug. All it took was one word -- aperto -- to bring out the masses and pump life into the city.

On Saturday night they hung “open” signs throughout the heart of Turin until the early-morning hours. At the museums, at the art galleries, at the cafes, aperto, aperto, aperto. And the people packed the streets, some 300,000 strong through the commercial heart of the city, bringing traffic to a crawl, sending lines streaming out of every bar, pizzeria and shish-kebab joint.

Give the Piedmont regional organizers credit, they knew what would hit home. One thing Italy -- like most of Europe -- has over Los Angeles is its nocturnal nature. You might not be able to get a sit-down meal in the middle of the afternoon here, but if you’d like to dine al fresco at 11 p.m., your table is right this way.

Speedskaters going around a rink at 3 p.m. doesn’t fit the local culture. But midnight strolls do. So the shops stayed open until dawn. There was an all-night moviethon at the cinema museum. You could even stop by the University of Studies to get your learn on.

It was dubbed La Notte Olimpica, or “Olympic Night.” The locals called it “White Night.” Given the disco tone set in the opening ceremony it should have been called “Night Fever.”

And if they were opening the doors, I was walking through.

So after filing my column from the short-track speedskating venue, I dropped my bag in my room and began my quest at 1 a.m. As I was leaving the media housing village, a group of Australians -- at the Winter Olympics, you can always identify people by their parkas -- was coming back. The night was just starting. The Australians couldn’t hang.

Luckily, I caught one of the few available cabs and watched while the cabby deftly maneuvered around the sea of cars -- even sliding into opposing traffic at times -- all while smooth-talking his lady on the cellphone.

I decided to drop by the Museum of Natural Sciences, where they were supposed to have wine tasting presented by the Assn. of Women Sommeliers.

Plus, I wanted to see what sort of people would go to a museum at 1 a.m. Answer: the entire Piedmont region.

There was a band performing in the museum’s inner courtyard and people occupying every bit of space. Meanwhile, my visions of smiling Italian women pouring wine were replaced by a pile of empty wine boxes dumped next to a case containing fossilized jawbones. I went out to the courtyard, where I almost stepped on a couple sleeping on the ground, his head in his hands, her head in his lap. They couldn’t hang.

They had to be serving drinks somewhere, so I went around the corner to Canada House, a log cabin built in downtown Turin just for these Games, a place that had thrown a good party on opening night. The doors were locked, no music inside. The Canadians couldn’t hang.

As I wandered back down the streets, I heard hooting and hollering coming from Via Po, the main thoroughfare. Could there be a Mardi Gras situation going on? And where could I find some beads?

It turned out there was nothing going on. Throughout the night, guys just started yelling for no reason. There was all of the crowdedness of New Orleans’ Bourbon Street, but none of the frivolity. Just tons and tons of people walking around. No beads, no goodies, no drinks in their hands.

Now about that drink. I walked across the Po River and came across a place called Granbar. The best thing it had going for it was a magazine rack that featured an Italian GQ cover with a much more revealing shot of Naomi Campbell than we’d ever see in the States.

But the whole method of obtaining drinks at this bar felt wrong. You had to place your order with the cashier, pay, give your name, then wait for the bartender to fix your drink and call your name. This is a bar, not Fatburger. I prefer my routine to go like this: order drink, get drink, pay for drink, drink drink.

So I walked down to Club Bud, the temporary pyramid featuring models lounging in a hot tub. Simpler process there: point at tap, get a beer. I ran into Jay Mariotti and Greg Couch of the Chicago Sun-Times, and we made our way back across the river, to a dungeon-like club called Giancarlo.

It was 4 a.m. and there were people everywhere. There were bouncers at the door, but this wasn’t some pretentious place. The problem wasn’t getting past the door, it was getting in. The bouncer didn’t blink as we walked past him, but when we reached the door, we ran into a leaning, swaying, pushing mass of bodies.

It took us 10 minutes to get inside and up a few steps. We made our way to a spot near the bathrooms where we found breathing room. Then we entered the back room, the so-called dance floor. With so many people, the “dancing” was limited to jumping up and down and trying not to sprain an ankle by landing on someone. They played Brazilian-influenced music, including a bossa nova version of “Smooth Operator.”

I didn’t mind the crowds and pushing bodies when I went to Carnival in Brazil. The differences were, I was five years younger and we weren’t inside. There was only one small door out of this place, which was so overcrowded a fire marshal would have fainted. And most of the people in there had been drinking. Bad combination. So we made our way out and strolled back down the river.

The Po is the longest river in Italy. And to paraphrase Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, it is a great, great waterway ... for men to urinate in. Every 15 feet, someone was relieving himself along the banks of the river. It didn’t help that it was 5 a.m. and the clubs weren’t letting anyone else inside.

The streets were considerably emptier as we made our way to the main piazza in search of transportation home. Most of the businesses were closed. But one was open, my favorite place in Europe as of last Tuesday, the Bar Gelateria delle Alpi. As my Grandpa Bob used to say, the drinks taste so good, if you put one on your head, your tongue would slap your brain silly trying to get at it.

It was almost 6 a.m. I finally found justification for this Olympic Night.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/adande, and to read more, go to latimes.com/adandeblog.