Turin

Turin is a baroque capital laid out on a Roman grid beneath the Alps, first city of the Kingdom of Italy and still one of its great museum cities. Between royal palaces and the spire of the Mole Antonelliana run porticoed streets built for coffee, vermouth and slow looking — a city that rewards more days than most travellers give it.

Why visit

Turin rarely behaves as visitors expect. Instead of postcard chaos it offers straight avenues, chalk-stone squares and kilometres of arcaded walkways; instead of a single sight, a dense series of world-class museums — Egyptian antiquities, cinema, the Risorgimento, the automobile — gathered within walking distance of one another. The city was the seat of the House of Savoy, and its palaces and galleries now form part of the UNESCO-listed Savoy Residences; it became the first capital of united Italy in 1861, and the National Museum of the Risorgimento tells that story inside the palace where the first parliament met. Add the Alps framing every skyline, the aperitivo culture that claims vermouth as a Turin invention, and a food scene anchored by the Slow Food movement nearby, and the case for three or four days is easily made.

Character and history

Augusta Taurinorum, the Roman colony, left the city its orthogonal street plan and the Porta Palatina, one of the best-preserved Roman city gates in Italy, beside the ruins of a Roman theatre. Turin became capital of the Savoy state in the sixteenth century, and the dynasty rebuilt it as a baroque stage: Guarini’s domes and Juvarra’s facades still set the tone around Piazza Castello, the geometric heart from which arcades radiate. In the nineteenth century the city led the Risorgimento — Palazzo Carignano, birthplace of Vittorio Emanuele II, hosted the first Italian parliament — and later the twentieth made it the factory of the nation, the home of Fiat and of a design and cinema culture that lingers. The river Po and the hill beyond give the plan its western counterweight: Grand Madre church facing Piazza Vittorio Veneto, and the Capuchin hill with its viewpoint above the water.

What to see

Start in the centre at the Royal Museums of Turin, the vast complex around the Royal Palace — the self-styled first royal palace of Italy — which gathers the Sabauda Gallery of dynastic paintings, the Royal Armoury, the Royal Library with its Leonardo drawings, the Museum of Antiquities and the Royal Gardens. Guarini’s Chapel of the Holy Shroud, wedged between palace and Turin Cathedral, is a baroque marvel in its own right. Across the square stands Palazzo Madama, a Roman gate, castle and baroque facade fused into one UNESCO building; the Church of San Lorenzo next door conceals an extraordinary ribbed dome.

The Mole Antonelliana, the 167-metre masonry spire once begun as a synagogue, now holds the National Cinema Museum, and its panoramic terrace looks from the rooftops to the snowy arc of the Alps. The Egyptian Museum, founded in 1824 around the consul Drovetti’s collection, is the world’s oldest museum devoted entirely to Egyptian antiquity. Southwards, the riverside Valentino Park holds the Castello del Valentino, the fanciful Medieval Village built for the 1884 exposition, and the university botanical garden. In the baroque squares of the centre — Piazza San Carlo above all — the historic cafes are attractions in themselves.

How to experience

Follow the local rhythm: coffee standing at a marble counter in the morning, a museum before lunch, an aperitivo under the arcades of Via Po or Piazza San Carlo in the early evening, and dinner in the Roman-quadrant or San Salvario trattorias. Bici, metro and the porticoes make the centre walkable; the Turin+Piemonte Card bundles transport with museum entry for visitors planning a full circuit. On clear days ride the historic Sassi-Superga rack tramway up to Juvarra’s Basilica of Superga, where the Savoy kings are buried and the whole Po plain spreads below. Shoppers and cooks should not miss the Porta Palazzo market, among Europe’s largest open-air markets, best on weekend mornings.

Practical planning

Turin is a hub: the airports of Caselle and the Milan gateways feed it by rail, and the high-speed line links Turin Porta Nuova with Milan in about an hour. Spring and autumn bring the best light on the Alps; winter is sharp but atmospheric, summer the quietest in the centre. Museums close one weekday each — the Royal Museums on Wednesdays at the time of research — so sequence visits against their calendars published on the official sites. Book the cinema museum’s terrace lift and the Chapel of the Holy Shroud viewing in advance in high season.

Nearby places

The Savoy story continues at Venaria Reale, the restored hunting palace just north of the city, while the castle town of Rivoli holds a celebrated contemporary art museum along the same royal axis. North-east lies the industrial-archaeology town of Ivrea, and the hill-and-residence country around Agliè extends the UNESCO residences route.