Romantic Turin

We took a train from Asti to Turin, stopping right in the centre of the city. This is an unusually romantic place, lots of tall baroque buildings with ornate iron arcades that looks like they are still in the 1920s and where everyone wanders, there is no hurrying, very few tourists, lots of local Italians, dressed up to the nines, supping Martinis in swag covered bars. There are so many cafes here, full of silver service waiters serving Madames and their handbag dogs a smidgeon of amaretto biscuit with their tiny espresso.

In the “old quarter” buildings rise up in tight blocks forming dark narrow walkways, all similar in design to the next but with a splendour that comes with age. One part of the town was demolished 100 years ago to do away with the slums, and rebuilt in the same style so it’s very hard to tell what age these buildings are. So many historic buildings dating back to the Savoy Family (equivalent to the Royal family) are now museums, 26 that we could count, as well as 10 churches and basilicas, and 16 theatres!

The Royal Palace is now a large museum, originally built in the 16^th century and modernised in the 17^th century and includes a chapel which was built to hold the Turin Shroud. It has a huge armoury but we didn’t have time to do the guided tour, supposedly 2.5 hours.

We did view a private Egyptian exhibition, the dig in the Nile area started in the early 1900 by an Italian archaeologist and continued by his team and his legacy until the late 1990s. We saw interesting items found in whole burial areas, complete mummies and the items they were buried with, the mummies dated back by 4000 years.

We also found one of the roads that The Italian Job was filmed on, Galleria San Federico, but was sadly disappointed to learn that although the Fiat factory rooftop race track does still exist, the old factory is now a large modern shopping centre with the track on the rooftop and is accessible at a price. There is no reference to this iconic film in the city, not even in the National Museum of Cinema, based in Turin’s Mole Antonelliana, a building originally built as a mosque but now home to yet another museum.

Turin is a slow moving, beautiful, romantic city on the banks of the River Po, and we can highly recommend it as a relaxing and informative city break location. Just don’t take your wallet (beware of the endless designer shops) and make sure you love coffee, and eating!