We’ve had the pleasure of exploring some of the Piedmont region of northern Italy in the past, mostly for the food, wine, and white truffles : Barolo, White Truffles & Nebbiolo, Langhe, and Acqui Terme and a Truffle Surprise. But we’d never visited the region’s capital, Turin. Our friend Wendy from Toronto proposed a long-weekend rendezvous for all of us to explore Turin, and we said yes instantly.
Our past visits to the region had been by car, which meant that we had a trunk into which to put cases of wine. Too many cases? Not possible. This time, we flew to Turin with two carry-on bags. So no cases of wine — right?
This post will resemble the Hop On Hop Off bus that we took as an easy way to introduce us to the city: a stop here and a stop there, and then coffee, chocolate, and wine.
Mole Antonelliana
Let’s start with what some think of as Turin’s Eiffel Tower — probably only French people think of the Mole Antonelliana like that. At 167.5 meters / 550 feet, it’s the tallest and most recognizable monument in the city center. (The Eiffel Tower is 330 meters / 1,080 feet tall, so there’s that!) It’s currently the home of the National Museum of Cinema, but more about that in a moment.
The origin story of this remarkable tower traces back to a brief time of tolerance, when the Catholic majority allowed other faiths to come out of the shadows. Here’s the context: In the first half of the 19th century, Turin was the capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was a Savoy‑ruled state centered on Piedmont and the island of Sardinia, also including Genoa and the County of Nice.
Up until 1848, both the Jewish and Protestant communities, which had deep roots in the region, lived under heavy restrictions, such as limitations on residence, access to certain professions, and civic participation. But by 1848, across Europe, uprisings in places like Paris triggered demands for constitutional government; in the Italian states, bourgeois and some aristocratic elites pushed for reforms and national unification. The Savoy monarchy wanted to get ahead of the anti-establishment threats. King Charles‑Albert promulgated the Statuto Albertino, a short, liberal charter that became the fundamental law of the kingdom and later of unified Italy. Article 1 declared Catholicism the sole religion of the state, but the same constitutional framework formally tolerated “all other forms of worship now existing,” which meant legally recognized non‑Catholic communities could hold services. This liberalization remained in place until the rise of Mussolini’s Fascist regime.
The openings of the Statuto Albertino led, in the 1860s, to the ambitious project of what is now called the Mole Antonelliana. Turin’s Jewish community purchased land to build a confident new temple. They called it the Tempio Israelitico di Torino (Israelite Temple of Turin). They hired architect Alessandro Antonelli to design a new synagogue that, at first, promised to be of average height for the time. But as construction progressed, architect Antonelli repeatedly revised the plans, each time increasing the height. Antonelli wasn’t Jewish; it seems that his motivations were an obsession with pushing the available construction methods to maximal height and grand scale, perhaps in pursuit of some kind of architectural sublimity. (And contributed to too many clients’ convictions today that if they look away from their architects for even a moment, they’ll run off to the sky and the bank.)
And that’s what architect Antonelli’s passion led to: mounting costs and growing delays, which compelled the Jewish community to halt the project. The city agreed to an exchange of property so that the community could build a more modest synagogue on another site. And the city could restart the tower project with the aim of creating a monument to Italian unification. Antonelli finally got to fulfill his (over-compensating?) dream of the grand tower. Mole Antonelliana means “Antonelli’s monumental structure.”
Today, the tower houses the National Museum of Cinema. It is considered among the most important cinema museums in the world and holds around 1.8 million items, including films, photographs, posters, equipment, documents, sound recordings, and books. At the time of our visit, all the public spaces and exhibits were dedicated to Orson Welles.
We all love our Citizen Cane and War of the Worlds, but we were here for Turin. Access to the museum meant access to a wonderful glass elevator from the 1960s that dangles from the cupola down to the main exhibit floor. The ride up and down was great…
… and the panoramic views of the city tied Turin together for us.
Let’s go back in time — way back.
Porta Palatina
The Porta Palatina is one of the best-preserved first-century Roman gates in the world. It hales from the time of the founding of the city of Turin as the Roman colony of Iulia Augusta Taurinorum. Taurinorum means “of the Taurini” who were a Celtic-Ligurian tribe that lived in the area when the Romans moved in. You can see how Torino comes from Taurinorum.
The layouts of Roman cities were gridded, anchored by principal crossroads perpendicular to each other: the Cardus Maximus (north-south) and Decumanus Maximus (east-west). This gate anchored the north side of the city, connecting the Cardus Maximus to the countryside. It may have looked something like this:
The gate allowed control of people, goods and taxes. At the time, it was more ceremonial and administrative than strictly defensive, embodying the transition from the wild countryside to the civitas, or Roman urban life.
Palace of the House of Savoy
Another royal palace! This time for the House of Savoy.
The House of Savoy ruled a composite Alpine state (Savoy, Piedmont, Nice, Aosta, and more) since the Middle Ages, giving it long‑standing legitimacy as a European dynasty. By the 19th century, their mainland domains were effectively known as the Kingdom of Sardinia‑Piedmont, and this Savoyard monarchy became the “natural focus” and leading state of the Risorgimento, which was the push for Italian unification.
Much of what one can visit today comes from the 17th century and later. The palace was the main residence of the Savoy family and the stage for court society. Like so many other grand palaces in Europe, its political role was to project absolutist grandeur through architecture, art, gardens, and court display. Such as this grand entry stair:
One of the most spectacular spaces is the Royal Armory, a long gallery lined with weapons, suits of armor, and mounted horses, considered one of the finest armor collections in Europe. It displays ceremonial swords, pistols, armor and military regalia spanning several centuries, including pieces associated with key figures of Savoy and Italian history.
How’s this for a modest throne?
The palace complex includes the Cappella della Sacra Sindone, the Chapel of the Holy Shroud, a 17th‑century Baroque masterpiece by architect Guarino Guarini. The chapel was built to house the Shroud of Turin. Alas, the Shroud now resides in the nearby Cathedral of Turin. In 1997, a fire devastated the chapel, but the Shroud was successfully removed in time. Restoration of the chapel took over 20 years.
Guarino Guarini was a particularly daring and innovative Baroque architect. He worked in the mid-17th century, almost exclusively in the Piedmont. You can see in the chapel’s dome some of his mastery of architectural forms to convey big ideas. He stacked stone arches with light-filled windows to express an infinite climb up to light and heaven. No one had done anything like this before.
One of his secular masterpieces is another building in Turin, not far from the Savoy Palace, the Palazzo Carignano. The palace is famed for its billowing brick façade with concave and convex curves. This is the fun of the Baroque sensibility: transforming the old heavy palaces into sensuous movement.
We sat at a café across from the Palazzo Carignano, enjoying a drink tightly connected to Turin, the bicerin. Its origins go back to the mid-18th century, and today is one of the city’s culinary symbols. The decadent version that we enjoyed was layered; from bottom to top: about 45% thick hot chocolate, 10% espresso, 45% thick cream. We read that you should drink it without stirring, so each sip passes through the layers of chocolate, coffee and cream, preserving the textural contrast that defines its character. We were less patient and gave in to a quick stir to enjoy all the parts together. We also ordered this bicerin at about 11 in the morning; not smart strategically — no one wanted to talk about lunch after that.
Elegant retail arcades
Open-air arcades line many of the streets and piazzas of central Turin. In the 17th century, street-fronting arcades started being constructed for the nobility and aristocrats who needed to be protected from the sun and rain. Such delicate souls. We realized that we too are delicate enough to appreciate a stroll under cover and along interesting storefronts. Here’s an example along Piazza Vittorio Veneto (though this wasn’t built until 1830).
By the time the Piazza Vittorio Veneto was built, glass-and-iron-covered arcades, lined with upscale shops, had become popular in European capitals. The upper crust could stroll and shop, but so could members of the emerging bourgeoisie who wanted to see and be seen. City leaders were also eager that these new arcades be built because using iron and glass to create elegant public interiors expressed modernity and luxury.
Three notable arcades are located close to each other in central Turin. Today, they still convey grandeur and opulence from times gone by. However, inclusion of some familiar chain stores and moderate-priced cafés made us think of today’s urban shopping malls. But isn’t that a sign of the enduring place of these attractive arcades in today’s world: they have been able to evolve with the times.
Galleria Subalpina (1873) is one of Turin’s earliest glass‑roofed shopping arcades and helped define the city’s “gallery” model. Its name comes from the Subalpine Industry Bank, which financed and oversaw the project, tying early retail development to the region’s burgeoning financial sector. (Subalpine Bank’s buying its name placement sounds like today, as with SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, named for SoFi Banking, a digital personal finance company, and Accor Arena in Paris, named for the French hospitality multinational company.)
Galleria Umberto I (1890) sits close to the Porta Palazzo market area, which was Europe’s largest open-air market at the time. The gallery expressed the layered economy of Turin: everyday trade at the market under open skies, and refined shopping under glass and stucco decoration.
Galleria San Federico (1933, replacing an earlier arcade from 1856) held onto the 19th-century heritage while supporting 20th-century urban vision, including ample storefronts, offices, underground storerooms and garages, and a new cinema.
Pride parade
By good luck, Turin’s Pride Parade and celebration took place on the Sunday of our visit. We realized that we hadn’t been to a Pride Parade since when we had lived in San Francisco in the 1990s. While we didn’t jump into the middle of it all, grab flags, shed clothes, and march along, we did cheer everyone along from in the street. We were moved by the diversity of the crowd, the length and energy of the parade, and how much the atmosphere bubbled on the best side of acceptance. This was a party for everyone and deliciously ordinary.
So sad that many other places in the world are regressing. We had the good fortune to join in the better normal.
Food and wine, of course
We sought out dinner restaurants that celebrated local cuisine and wines. That wasn’t hard to do! We particularly enjoyed Alte Volte...
…and La Casa del Barolo, which we chose for our last dinner of the visit to Turin. We selected a tasting menu of local favorites — including this classic combination of thinly-sliced cold veal and a creamy, savory tuna and caper sauce, vitello tonnato. It may not be particularly photogenic, but it’s fresh and delicious!
The restaurant proposed a different wine for each course. The sommelier for the evening was a bubbly, seriously knowledgeable young woman, full of life and enthusiasm. And a member of the family that owns the restaurant. We enjoyed all the wines, in particular this one:
In the course of the evening, our new best-friend sommelier mentioned that her primary job was to host the adjoining wine store. Our earlier commitment not to buy wine while in Piedmont started to melt. Our flight the next day was in the late afternoon, so we had time to stop by leaving for the airport. Maybe shipping wouldn’t be too expensive. We could just look, right?
Wrong! A week later, three cases of wines of the region arrived at home, including a few bottles of the Prunotto Bansella Nizza that we had so enjoyed at dinner.
Now, for special meals at home like a savory pork roast or crispy duck breast, we select a lovely Piedmont red and feel a tiny bit Italian for the evening.
June 2026