5 Days in Turin

Start where Turin buys its groceries. Porta Palazzo fills Piazza della Repubblica, an octagonal square of more than 51,000 square meters, and the open-air market on it is often called the biggest in Europe, with around 750 stalls on a weekday and around 800 on Saturday, plus covered halls. Go before 10am, when the stalls are full. Farmers sell next to stalls run by the city's newer immigrant communities, so it's a crossroads of Piedmontese cheese, hazelnuts, vegetables, spices and fish. Have a coffee and a pastry at a counter around the square. It isn't pretty, and the streets north of it toward the Dora river are best avoided after dark, but by day it's the most honest place in Turin.

A few minutes south of the market stands what's left of Roman Turin. The Porta Palatina was the north gate of Julia Augusta Taurinorum and counts among the best-preserved Roman gateways of the 1st century AD anywhere. The brick towers were studied and restored in 1901 by Alfredo d'Andrade, so the shape is original and the finish partly modern. Beside it are the remains of the Roman theatre, in an archaeological park that opened in 2006.

Behind the gate lies the Quadrilatero Romano, the grid of old streets that was the Roman camp, now full of small bars and shops. If you're hungry, a piola, Turin's word for a simple, cheap osteria, is the right lunch: Piola Cianci on Largo IV Marzo is a few steps away.

The Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist went up between 1491 and 1498 beside a bell tower from 1470, on the site of three older churches a few steps from the Roman theatre. It's a plain, light Renaissance church, and in the last chapel of the left aisle, under the Royal Tribune, the Shroud of Turin is kept. The linen cloth bears a faint image of a man and is venerated by many Christians as the burial cloth of Jesus. It came to Turin with the House of Savoy in 1578 and passed to the Catholic Church after the death of King Umberto II in 1983.

Be honest about what you'll see: the Shroud itself is not on view. It lies in a conservation case inside a metal chest and comes out only for public expositions, the last from 19 April to 24 June 2015, and the official site says none is planned for 2026. For the story, go in the afternoon to the Museo della Sindone on Via San Domenico (daily 3pm to 6pm), which shows a copy and explains the research. Radiocarbon dating in 1988 by three laboratories placed the cloth between 1260 and 1390, a result experts accept and believers still dispute; popes have venerated the cloth without declaring it authentic.

The House of Savoy ruled from here for three centuries, and the Royal Museums are what it left behind. One ticket, valid all day, covers the state rooms of the Palazzo Reale, the Royal Armoury, the Galleria Sabauda, the Museum of Antiquities with the Roman Theatre, and the Chapel of the Holy Shroud. Start on the first floor of the Royal Palace, with its gilded rooms, tapestries, a throne room and the long Galleria del Daniel. The Armoury is a hall of armor, swords and horses that works even if you don't care about weapons.

Don't skip the Chapel of the Holy Shroud. Guarino Guarini began it in 1668 as a dark, domed space for the cloth; a fire in 1997 damaged it badly and it reopened in 2018 after a long restoration. The Galleria Sabauda has Van Dyck's court portraits, Veronese, a Botticelli Venus and Memling's Passion of Christ, and deserves an hour on its own. The royal gardens behind the palace are free.

The square around the Royal Palace is the stage set of Savoy power, and Palazzo Madama stands in the middle of it: a Roman gate turned into a medieval castle, with two Roman towers still there, then rebuilt as a baroque residence by two regents known as madama, hence the name. It was the first Senate of the Kingdom of Italy, and now holds the Museo Civico d'Arte Antica, Gothic, Renaissance and baroque art.

If you've just spent three hours in the Royal Museums, the outside is enough: the facade is the best part and it's free. Go in only with a free hour before 5pm and an interest in medieval art.

Turin's signature drink was invented in a tiny café opposite the Santuario della Consolata. A bicerin, "little glass" in Piedmontese, is espresso, drinking chocolate and cream of milk layered in a small glass, and the rule is not to stir it. Caffè al Bicerin has stood on Piazza della Consolata since 1763, when a lemonade seller named Giuseppe Dentis opened a shop here; the marble tables and wooden counter come from its 19th-century refit, and Cavour had a favorite table. It's small and popular, and the one place in this guide where you'll probably queue. Go on a weekday afternoon, drink it slowly, then look across the square at the baroque Consolata church, free to enter.

Turin invented the modern aperitivo. Vermouth in its modern form was first made here in the 18th century, and fashionable cafés served it around the clock. The ritual survives: from about 6pm a bar sells you a drink and the price includes a buffet of snacks. On Piazza Savoia, Lobelix does a nightly aperitivo in the evening. Ask for a Vermouth di Torino over ice with a slice of orange.

Treat the buffet as a bite, not dinner: it's usually gone by about 9pm. Then eat Piedmontese food at Tre Galli on Via Sant'Agostino, a relaxed place for local dishes or just a drink.

The Museo Egizio is the oldest museum in the world devoted entirely to ancient Egypt, and its 40,000-plus objects make it the most important collection outside Cairo. It grew from the pieces a botanist brought back in 1753 and took off in 1824, when King Charles Felix bought the huge collection of the French consul Bernardino Drovetti. That same year Jean-François Champollion came to study its papyri while working out how to read hieroglyphs, and the museum likes to quote him: the road to Memphis and Thebes passes through Turin.

Don't miss the intact tomb of Kha and Merit, found by Ernesto Schiaparelli in 1906 and moved whole to Turin, the papyri, including the Turin King List and a very old Book of the Dead, and the statues. The building is under renovation, so the route is less straightforward than usual and the cloakroom is closed: travel light. The booking site lists the Rock-cut Chapel of Ellesiya, a Nubian temple Egypt gave to Italy in the 1960s, next to the main ticket.

A few minutes from the museum is Piazza San Carlo, the drawing room of Turin. The Savoy laid it out in the 16th and 17th centuries, with porticoes by Carlo di Castellamonte around 1638, twin churches at one end and in the middle an equestrian statue of Emmanuel Philibert by Carlo Marochetti from 1838. The arcades, the portici, are the city's signature: miles of covered pavement along the main streets mean you can walk in the rain.

For a coffee, Caffè San Carlo at number 156 is the gilded old option, though its hours vary, so check first. Next to the Egyptian Museum, Palazzo Carignano holds the Risorgimento Museum, in the building where the first Italian parliament sat and two kings were born. It's open Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 6pm, for 12 EUR.

Two historic cafés stand side by side on Piazza Castello. Caffè Mulassano, at number 15, is a tiny room of dark wood and brass, and a plaque inside credits it with inventing the tramezzino in 1926, the soft triangular sandwich now eaten all over Italy. Have one standing at the counter with a coffee: a quick, cheap, good lunch. Next door, Baratti & Milano, a confectioner founded in 1858 with a café since 1875, is the place for the gianduiotto, the gold-wrapped chocolate ingot born in Turin.

Gianduja, a paste of chocolate and hazelnut, spread when Napoleon's blockade made cocoa scarce, and the first gianduiotti were made in Turin in 1852 by Caffarel and Prochet. A small bag is the best souvenir.

The Mole Antonelliana, 167.5 meters tall, is the symbol of Turin, and it was meant to be a synagogue. The Jewish community hired Alessandro Antonelli in 1863 and watched him push the height and cost far past the plan; it withdrew in 1876 and the city finished the building in 1889. Nietzsche, who lived in Turin, admired it enough to say it reminded him of his Zarathustra. Today it holds the National Cinema Museum, open since 2000, and it's a good museum, not a consolation prize.

The exhibition spirals up through the dome: magic lanterns and optical toys at the bottom, then film sets and posters, and in the Great Temple a hall of red reclining seats for Italian film classics on giant screens. The glass panoramic lift takes you to a terrace 85 meters up, with the city grid, the Po, the hills and the Alpine arc. If you only want the view, buy the lift alone. Do the lift first, around 3:30pm, then the museum.

Walk from the Mole down Via Po, the long arcaded street the Savoy laid out to link Piazza Castello with the bridge over the river. In the evening it's the best walk in the center: lit shop windows, old bookshops and cafés under the arches, and at the bottom the wide Piazza Vittorio Veneto, where students gather. Across the Po, the domed Gran Madre di Dio closes the view.

Piazza Vittorio and the Murazzi, the riverside arches, are where Turin goes out late. Stay on the square for a drink, then eat nearby, for example at Porto di Savona on the square itself, which serves classic Piedmontese dishes and lists lunch and dinner every day.

Alba is a town of around 30,000, the ancient Alba Pompeia, with medieval towers, brick streets and a neat old center. Walk the main streets, then visit MUDET, the truffle museum on Piazza Falcone, which takes truffles from myth to science and honors truffle hunting with dogs, the cerca e cavatura, on UNESCO's intangible heritage list. It's open 10:30am to 6pm and closed on Tuesdays.

During the fair weekends, a Slow Food Earth Market sets up on Piazza Pertinace (check its hours on the fair site), a better place for cheese, hazelnuts, honey and salami than any shop. Taste before you buy.

The International Alba White Truffle Fair is in its 96th edition in 2026 and runs from 10 October to 6 December. Its heart is the Alba White Truffle World Market in the city center, where the sellers, the trifulau, sell under the supervision of a quality commission, and judges from the National Truffle Study Centre help you choose. Around it are cooking shows, wine tastings, special dinners and a donkey palio, a folklore race. The fair's calendar lists the dates.

Be realistic: a white truffle is among the most expensive foods in the world, and you don't have to buy one. The sensible way to try it is shaved over pasta or an egg in a restaurant. Ask the price per hundred grams before you say yes. The fair is busiest on weekends, so go early and expect to share the town.

Lunch in Alba is simple: tajarin, the thin egg pasta of the Langhe, in a trattoria. It's traditionally served with butter and shaved truffle, or with the juices of a roast. A starter of vitello tonnato, cold sliced veal under a tuna sauce, and a glass of Barbera or Dolcetto, the everyday reds of the area, make a classic Piedmontese lunch.

Book ahead in fair weeks, pick a trattoria rather than a showpiece restaurant and ask for truffle on just one dish.

Barolo is a hilltop village about 15 km south of Alba and gives its name to the red wine made from the nebbiolo grape, often called one of Italy's greatest. In Castello Falletti at the top of the village is WiMu, the Wine Museum, an interactive journey through wine culture designed by François Confino. It's open 10:30am to 7pm, last entry 6pm, and a full ticket is 9 euros.

Then go to the cellar doors and wine shops, and the vineyards across the Barolo zone, which is the real attraction; La Morra is a good viewpoint. If you drive, don't taste more than a sip: Italy's drink-driving rules are strict. Better to take a tour with a driver, or use a wine bar in the village and then a taxi.

The Palace of Venaria began in 1675 as a hunting lodge: Duke Charles Emmanuel II commissioned Amedeo di Castellamonte, and the name comes from the Latin venatio regia, the royal hunt. It grew into one of the grandest residences of the House of Savoy, meant to rival Versailles. Later a barracks, it fell into ruin and was brought back in a ten-year restoration. It's part of the UNESCO listing of the Savoy residences from 1997.

Go in the morning, when it's quiet, and head for the Salone di Diana, the Galleria Grande and the Chapel of Sant'Uberto, then the old stables. Several rooms hold temporary exhibitions, so the 25 euro ticket is worth it only if one of the shows interests you. Allow three hours. The scale is the point: it was built to impress, and it still does.

The street that runs from the palace to the station, Via Andrea Mensa, is Venaria's old town, the borgo antico, and it has simple trattorias and bakeries. This is the day for agnolotti del plin, the small pinched parcels of pasta filled with roast meat, from plin, a pinch, the move that seals each one. Served in butter and sage or in the juices of a roast, they're one of Piedmont's best dishes.

The Reggia has restaurants on site, convenient but pricier. Be back at the gardens by 2pm.

The gardens are a modern reinterpretation of the baroque originals, with long avenues and fountains, and they're included in the 18 euro ticket. Diana's Arrow, a little covered train that tours the Lower Park, is included too and saves your legs. If you still have energy, La Mandria, the former royal hunting estate and now a regional park, lies two kilometers away, with a later hunting lodge, the Castle of La Mandria, open Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 4pm from 25 October 2026.

In autumn the avenues are covered in leaves.

Back in Turin, eat the Piedmontese dinner the weekend has been leading to. Osteria del Frate, on Via Boucheron near Porta Susa, cooks in the Piedmontese style with generous portions and moderate prices, and it's a good place for vitello tonnato and, in the cold months, bollito misto, mixed boiled meats served with green sauce and mostarda.

Take tram 15 to the Sassi terminus in the northeast of the city and board the tranvia a dentiera, the rack tram to Superga. The line continues a tradition that began on 26 April 1884 with a cable funicular, and today's historic tram covers 3,100 meters, climbing from 225 to 650 meters above sea level at an average gradient of 13.5 percent, up to 21 percent near the top. Trams run hourly, with the ticket office at Sassi station. A Torino+Piemonte Card gets you the return for 4 euros. Check the last tram down: in the timetable in force in October 2026 it leaves Superga at 6:30pm on weekdays.

The Basilica of Superga went up from 1717 to 1731, designed by Filippo Juvarra for Duke Victor Amadeus II, who had vowed to build a church if he won the Battle of Turin in 1706, when French and Spanish troops besieged the city. It crowns the hill like a Pantheon, and most of the House of Savoy lies in its crypt.

Do three things. Climb the 131 steps to the outer balcony of the dome for the view of the city, the Po and the Alps (closed in bad weather, strong wind or above 32 degrees). Join the guided visit to the royal tombs, in Italian only, 45 minutes. And walk round the back to the wall where a plane carrying the whole Torino football team, the Grande Torino, crashed on 4 May 1949, killing all 31 people on board. A memorial remembers them.

Back in town, cross the Ponte Vittorio Emanuele I to the neoclassical Gran Madre di Dio, a church modeled on a pantheon that closes the view down Via Po. It was conceived in 1814 to celebrate Victor Emmanuel I's return to the throne after Napoleon's defeat, and finished in 1831. Behind it, Borgo Po is a quieter, leafier quarter of villas and cafés, good for a late lunch.

From the Gran Madre, walk south along the river into the Parco del Valentino, opened in 1856 as Italy's first public garden, half a million square meters along the Po. In 1946 its roads hosted the Turin Grand Prix, popularly called the first Formula One race. It's where locals jog, row and sit by the water, and on an autumn afternoon the plane trees turn gold. A slow loop along the river is enough.

A short climb from the river leads to the Monte dei Cappuccini, a small hill 325 meters above sea level just south of the Vittorio Emanuele I bridge. The Church of Santa Maria al Monte, built for the Capuchins between 1583 and 1656, crowns it, and the terrace in front has the best free view in the city: the Po, the Mole, the old-town roofs and the Alps behind.

In the first half of November the sun sets around 5:15pm, so be there by 4:45pm. Bring a jacket, wait for the lights to come on and finish your five days here.

End near Porta Palazzo, where you began, with a meal in a piola, the Turin neighborhood osteria: a short menu of Piedmontese antipasti and main courses, plain tables, a good glass of local red and a modest bill. Piola Cianci on Largo IV Marzo, mentioned on day one, serves quick antipasti and main courses.

Order cured meats and vitello tonnato to share, then the pasta or bollito misto the kitchen is proudest of, and finish with a glass of grappa. For a longer, more formal last night, Porto di Savona on Piazza Vittorio Veneto serves classic Piedmontese cooking every day. Check opening hours first.