TURIN · ITALY
Royal palaces, baroque porticoes, the Alps in the window.
Italy’s first capital and the House of Savoy’s 400-year seat. The world’s #2 Egyptian Museum, the Holy Shroud chapel and the Langhe wine country a short train ride south.
Only in Turin
Three things you can’t do anywhere else.
Egyptian Museums, royal palaces and Christian relics exist all over Europe. These three don’t. The world’s #2 Egyptian collection. The Crown of Delights. The Holy Shroud. Each one is specific to this single city. Plan the rest of the trip around them.
On the second floor
The Egyptian Museum
The world's second-largest Egyptian collection — only Cairo has more. 32,500 artefacts, the oldest Book of the Dead, the tomb chamber of Kha & Merit moved here whole. Founded 1824, the first Egyptology museum on the planet. Nothing comparable exists outside Egypt.
- 1 Turin: Guided Egyptian Museum Tour
- 2 Turin: Egyptian Museum Small Group Skip-the-Line Guided Tour
- 3 Turin: Egyptian Museum Skip-the-Line Group Tour
The Crown of Delights
The House of Savoy
Turin was the Savoy capital for 400 years and the first capital of unified Italy. The Palazzo Reale, the Armoury, the Royal Library and a dozen UNESCO-listed countryside residences form a single coordinated baroque ensemble. Versailles has one palace. Turin has fourteen.
- 1 Turin: Savoy Royal Palace Small Group Guided Tour
- 2 Turin: Royal Palace Entry Ticket and Guided Tour
- 3 Royal Palace of Turin Skip-the-Line Ticket and Guided Tour
Inside the cathedral
The Holy Shroud
The most-studied relic in history sits in a side chapel of Turin's cathedral, behind bulletproof glass. Public displays happen once a generation. The chapel itself, by Guarino Guarini, is a baroque masterpiece that took thirty years to rebuild after a 1997 fire. Both are here and nowhere else.
- 1 Private Turin Royal Palace Tour with Holy Shroud Chapel
- 2 Royal Palace and Shroud Chapel with local Guide & ticket
- 3 Turin: Private Tour on The Path of The Holy Shroud
Where most first-timers start
If you only have one day in Turin.
The page nearly every Turin visitor lands on first. Pairs the city’s biggest cultural hit with one of the most-booked passes in Italy.
The classics
Turin’s Most Popular Tours
The Egyptian Museum, the Royal Palace, the Mole Antonelliana and the Shroud chapel. The half-dozen experiences nearly every first-time traveller ends up booking.
By landmark
Pick a side of Turin.
Each one is its own afternoon. The Egyptian Museum for the artefacts. The Royal Palace for the Savoys. The cathedral for the Shroud. Venaria for the gardens. The Mole for the views. Langhe for a glass of Barolo.
By tour type
Or pick how you want to see the city.
Walking if you want the porticoes. Bike if you want speed. Hop-on, hop-off if you want range without a map. Food, wine and chocolate if you want the Piedmont version of an afternoon. Plus the magic-Turin walks the guidebooks tend to skip.
The House of Savoy
Turin’s royal half.
The Savoys ran most of northwest Italy from this single palace complex for four centuries, then handed the country its first king in 1861. The throne room, the gilded staircases, the armoury, the Royal Library — all open. If we had to pick three palace tours, these are the ones we’d book first.
The other Turin
Step into the strange half.
Turin sits on the European axis of both white and black magic — alchemists in Piazza Statuto, an Egyptian obelisk lining up with the cathedral, the only equestrian statue in Italy facing inward. Our three favourites for the after-dark side most guidebooks skip.
The aperitivo hour
Where the modern Italian evening was invented.
Carpano launched the first vermouth here in 1786. Caffarel folded hazelnuts into chocolate and called it gianduiotto in 1865. The bicerin (espresso, chocolate, cream) was poured around the corner from the cathedral in the 1700s. Three workshops, tastings and dinner walks that put you inside that lineage.
Beyond the porticoes
The Piedmont day-trip country.
Most travellers don’t realise Turin sits an hour from the Langhe vineyards, an hour from the Italian Alps, and forty minutes from the mountain monastery that inspired The Name of the Rose. Three we’d keep on any second-day itinerary.
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