11 reasons to visit Turin

Before we rolled into the Piedmontese capital, I knew exactly three things about Turin:

👍🏻 The Shroud of Turin is kept in the cathedral and only displayed by papal decree;

✌🏻 The city hosted the 2006 Winter Olympics (Google pulls up my favorite Evgeni Plushenko’s gold medal-winning performance); and

👌🏼 Serie A clubs Juventus and Torino F.C. are based here.

One week changes everything, though.

The stories will follow, as they always do, but in the meantime, here are the things I love about this underrated beauty – and maybe your reasons to visit next time.😉

1. It’s so gorgeous, it breaks your heart.

Le Corbusier called it “the city with the most beautiful natural location”, and it is impossible to argue when the city sits so prettily at the foot of the Alps, by the Po River, surrounded by the lush fields and vineyards of Piedmont.

Most articles I’ve read speak of Turin’s stately grace and the refinement of its royal past – words that do not have much impact until you have spent some time exploring its multitude of porticoes and piazzas, parks and palazzos, and driven down its long, sweeping tree-lined boulevards.

The Turinese have the decorum to match – they have a reputation for being more reserved than their neighbors, and so you experience less of the colorful tumult and frenetic chaos than you might have expected.

2. It has played a powerful role throughout Italian history. 

It was the seat of the influential dukes of Savoy, then the heart of the Italian kingdom; it was occupied by the French; it was where the Risorgimento, the Italian unification movement, began, and it was the first capital of unified Italy, which led to it being known as the ‘cradle of Italian liberty’.

But before all that, it was a Roman garrison, and today, you can still see Imperial Rome in the orderly layout of the city.

3. What’s an Italian city without art and culture?

The largest Egyptian Museum outside Cairo is here. There’s one dedicated to the history of cinema, another to automobiles, and still another to the Risorgimento itself. There are several unique art collections (that I didn’t get to visit this time, but will when I return!)

Going for a stroll around Turin means feasting your eyes on baroque and neoclassical and Renaissance structures in all their enduring glory. The Royal Residences of Savoy are inscribed on the World Heritage List, and you can visit magnificent palaces like the Stupinigi royal hunting lodge and its elaborate gardens.

4. Don Bosco was ordained – and spent his life – in Turin. 

Look, I just think it’s cool that the Salesian order has Piedmontese roots, okay?

5. Books, books, books. 

Turin was designated a World Book Capital in 2006, and every May there is an international book fair that would make a bibliophile faint with joy.

6. Come for the football, stay for the drama of Grande Torino.

We were going to get tickets to watch the latest derby between city rivals Juventus and Torino F.C. but shit happened, so I have yet to join a stadium crowd here.

Visit the hilltop Basilica di Superga, not only the site of the royal crypt of the House of Savoy, but in memory of Grande Torino, the near-mythical football team (who made up most of the Azzurri at that time, too) that perished when their plane crashed into the hill in 1949.

7. Aside from recent arrival Cristiano Ronaldo, many familiar names make their home here.

Just to name four off the top of my head: Fiat (the T stands for Torino). Pininfarina (oh, just the folks who design for Ferrari and Maserati). Lavazza. Martini & Rossi.

Turin is a manufacturing and industrial powerhouse, behind only Rome and Milan in terms of economic output.

8. The gold-wrapped gianduiotti will change the way you think about chocolate. 

The alchemy of chocolate and hazelnut is enchanting, from the gianduiotti you can take home in paper bags from market stalls to the artisanal masterpieces in exquisite boxes still bearing the seal of royal favor.

Hazelnut chocolate… sounds like Nutella? Why, yes. Ferrero SpA is headquartered in the nearby Piedmontese town of Alba (also the town associated with truffle season).

9. The food is glorious.

For an outsider reared on the familiar Italian favorites exported worldwide, Piedmontese cuisine came as something of a welcome shock. Rich, warm flavors of the land, with a heavy French influence, dishes to bring tears to your eyes.

There’s agnolotti del plin, rustic pasta stuffed with slow-cooked ox tail stew. Tajarin piemontesi is another handmade pasta standout served with lamb ragout.

A big pot of bagna cauda, a tasty anchovy-flavored sauce, accompanies the vegetables.

Brasato al Barolo is a hearty beef dish braised with one of the region’s renowned wines, the Barolo, while vitello tonnato is veal with a distinctive tuna sauce.

And for dessert, the bonet, a combination of amaretti and cocoa flan, served with caramel sauce and Chantilly cream.

From simple meals in the kitchen made with ingredients fresh from the market, to munching our way through the very first Eataly, to Michelin-starred dinners, I must say I have never been so well fed.

10. And the coffee!

Lovely coffee served in jewel-box cafes from the 19th century, or made at home with a small silver moka pot.

My personal favorite: the marocchino, a rousing blend of espresso, foamy milk and cocoa powder.

11. The aperitivo is said to be a Turinese invention…by the man who created vermouth

This pre-dinner ritual is all that I love about Italy – civilized, beautifully atmospheric, highly sociable. The apericena kicks things up a notch with an unlimited spread of sweet and savory nibbles, perfect for grazing on while you sip an Aperol spritz (another Piedmontese brand) in an elegant piazza at dusk, and muse to yourself that la vita can’t get any more dolce than this.

💚❤️

PS: And like all great love affairs, this one is already scored in my head – with Vivaldi’s Sonata in Sol Maggiore – Allegro.