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Turin is the capital of Piedmont, set on the west bank of the River Po with the Alps rising behind it. For centuries it was the seat of the House of Savoy, first as capital of the Duchy of Savoy from 1563 and then of the Kingdom of Sardinia, and from 1861 to 1865 it was the first capital of united Italy. It was the political heart of the Risorgimento and later a great industrial city, the home of Fiat.
The center is an elegant grid of arcaded streets and Baroque squares, crowned by the spire of the Mole Antonelliana. The royal palaces and residences of the Savoy family form a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the city is known for its cafés, chocolate and aperitivo, as well as for the Egyptian Museum and the Shroud of Turin kept in the cathedral.
Beyond the city, the basilica of Superga looks over Turin from its hill, the royal palaces of Venaria and Stupinigi stand among their parks, and the Susa Valley leads toward the mountains and the abbey of the Sacra di San Michele.
The Mole Antonelliana is the symbol of Turin, a towering building by Alessandro Antonelli begun in 1863 as a synagogue and completed in 1889. It now houses the National Museum of Cinema, with film devices, posters and sets, and a glass lift rises through its hall to a viewing terrace.
The Royal Palace of Turin was the main residence of the House of Savoy, rebuilt from 1645 for the regent Christine Marie of France and later decorated with designs by Filippo Juvarra. A museum since 1946 and part of a UNESCO site, it adjoins the Chapel of the Holy Shroud and the Royal Armory.
Palazzo Madama stands in the middle of Piazza Castello in Turin, which grew from a Roman city gate into a medieval castle and then a Baroque palace for two Savoy queens. It was the first Senate of the Kingdom of Italy, and it is part of the UNESCO-listed Residences of the Royal House of Savoy.
Turin Cathedral, dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, is a Renaissance church, built between 1491 and 1498 beside a bell tower from 1470. It keeps the Shroud of Turin, the linen cloth bearing the faint image of a man, and adjoins Guarino Guarini's Chapel of the Holy Shroud.
The Museo Egizio in Turin, founded in 1824 by King Charles Felix, is the world's oldest museum dedicated entirely to ancient Egyptian culture. Its collection of more than 40,000 artifacts, including statues, papyri and mummies, is considered the most important outside Cairo.
Piazza San Carlo is one of the grandest squares in Turin, laid out in the 16th and 17th centuries and lined with arcades designed by Carlo di Castellamonte around 1638. The equestrian statue of Emmanuel Philibert by Carlo Marochetti stands at its center, and twin churches close its southern side.
Parco del Valentino is a large public park along the west bank of the Po in Turin, opened in 1856 as Italy's first public garden. It holds the Baroque Castello del Valentino, a botanical garden and the Borgo Medievale, a reconstructed medieval village and castle built for an exhibition.
The Museo Nazionale dell'Automobile in Turin, known as MAUTO, shows about 200 cars from some 80 makes and ten countries on three floors. It reopened in 2011 after a major expansion, and its collection tells the story of the car in the city where Fiat was founded in 1899.
The Basilica of Superga crowns a hill just outside Turin, built from 1717 to 1731 to designs by Filippo Juvarra for Victor Amadeus II after the Battle of Turin. Its crypt holds the tombs of many Savoy princes and kings, and its terrace looks over the city to the arc of the Alps.
The Reggia di Venaria Reale is a vast Baroque royal palace just north of Turin, begun in 1675 as a hunting base for Duke Charles Emmanuel II and part of a UNESCO site. Reopened in 2007 after a huge restoration, it is famed for Juvarra's Galleria Grande, the chapel of Saint Hubert and its gardens.
The Palazzina di caccia of Stupinigi is a royal hunting lodge 10 kilometers southwest of Turin, designed by Filippo Juvarra for Victor Amadeus II and begun in 1729. Part of a UNESCO site, it has 137 rooms and 17 galleries, with a great central hall topped by a bronze stag.
The Sacra di San Michele is a dramatic abbey perched on Mount Pirchiriano in the Susa Valley, west of Turin, founded around the end of the 10th century. A symbol of Piedmont, it was for centuries a Benedictine monastery and is said to have inspired Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose.
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