Turin

Crowning the 672-meter hill of Superga, this Baroque masterpiece by Filippo Juvarra dominates Turin’s skyline, a votive monument born from a duke’s battlefield pledge in 1706. Its colossal dome—visible for miles—rises above a symmetrical façade, while the interior dazzles with multicolored marbles, stucco work, and the royal tombs of the House of Savoy in the crypt below. The true spectacle, however, is the panorama: from the terrace, the entire Alpine arc unfurls northward, with the Mole Antonelliana and Turin’s grid laid out like a map at your feet. Reached by a charming vintage rack railway from Sassi, the journey is as much a part of the experience as the destination.

Clinging to the flanks of the Chisone Valley like a stone serpent, the Forte di Fenestrelle is Europe’s largest alpine fortification—a staggering 1.3 million square metres of barracks, bastions, and covered stairways that climb 600 vertical metres over three kilometres of ridgeline. Begun in 1728 by the House of Savoy to guard the strategic French frontier, it earned the sobriquet “the Great Wall of the Alps.” The complex comprises eight distinct forts linked by a covered staircase of 4,000 steps—the Scala Reale—once used to move troops and cannon unseen. Today, silence reigns where sentries once paced; larch forests reclaim the glacis, and the only thunder is the river far below. Guided tours penetrate the Officers’ Pavilion, the Governor’s Palace, and the cavernous powder magazines, revealing a feat of military engineering that anticipated the modern age. The panoramas from the summit, spanning the Cottian Alps to the plains of Turin, are worth every step.

The Museo Egizio is the world’s oldest museum devoted entirely to ancient Egyptian culture and the second most important Egyptological collection globally, surpassed only by Cairo’s Egyptian Museum. Housed in a grand 17th-century Jesuit college in Turin’s elegant historic center, the museum holds over 30,000 artifacts spanning from the Paleolithic to the Coptic era. Highlights include the stunning Temple of Ellesija, dismantled stone by stone and reassembled inside the museum; the Royal Papyrus of Turin, one of the most complete ancient topographical lists of royal tombs; and the enigmatic, life-sized statue of Pharaoh Ramesses II. The galleries are arranged to guide visitors through daily life, religion, and funerary practices, with atmospheric lighting and modern displays that bring the artifacts to life. The museum’s recent renovation has made it one of Italy’s most sophisticated cultural institutions, blending scholarly rigor with immersive storytelling. For travelers with any interest in antiquity, this is a world-class destination that rivals the great museums of London, Paris, and Berlin.

The Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi is a Baroque masterpiece disguised as a hunting lodge, its central oval salon crowned by a soaring dome and a bronze stag that seems to leap into the frescoed heavens. Designed by Filippo Juvarra for the House of Savoy, the palace unfolds in a sinuous horseshoe of stucco, mirrors, and giltwood, each room a theatrical set piece—Chinese lacquer cabinets, Gobelins tapestries, and the original 18th-century kitchens still hung with copper batterie. The surrounding park, once a royal game reserve, now offers shaded avenues of ancient plane trees. It is Versailles in miniature, intimate and astonishingly intact.

A palimpsest of Piedmontese power, Palazzo Madama crowns Piazza Castello with a façade that marries a medieval castle’s sturdy towers to a scintillating Baroque palace by Filippo Juvarra. The rear elevation reveals the original 14th-century fortress of the Acaja princes, while the front, completed in 1721 for Marie Jeanne of Savoy—Madame Royale—unfurls a monumental staircase and a screen of Corinthian columns that seem to dance in the Turin light. Inside, the Museo Civico d’Arte Antica traces decorative arts from Roman foundations through Gothic ivories, Renaissance tapestries, and Meissen porcelain to the glittering Savoyard silver. The tower’s panoramic terrace rewards climbers with a 360-degree sweep over the Alpine arc and the city’s rational grid.

Just beyond Turin’s northern fringe, the Reggia di Venaria unfurls like a Baroque dream — a UNESCO World Heritage palace that once served as the Savoyard answer to Versailles. Designed by Amedeo di Castellamonte and later expanded by Juvarra, its grand Galerie di Diana stretches 80 meters beneath trompe-l’oeil frescoes, while the Great Stables, a cathedral-like space of brick and light, now hosts contemporary art installations. The gardens, restored to their 18th-century splendor, blend formal parterres with a modern “Potager Royal” where heirloom vegetables grow in geometric beds. This is Savoy power made visible: hunting lodge, pleasure palace, and political theater all at once.

The seat of Savoy power from the late Renaissance through Italian unification, Turin’s Royal Palace is a masterclass in baroque political theater. Its gilded Hall of Mirrors rivals Versailles, its armory is one of the world’s richest collections of historical weaponries, and its royal apartments shimmer with silk paneling and frescoed ceilings that whisper tales of courtly intrigue. The palace’s piazzetta—framed by the elegant façade, twin saints, and a massive colonnade—serves as the city stage for grand processions and modern-day gatherings alike. Whether dazzling in a tiara or exploring the state rooms, visitors are immersed in the refined grandeur that once rivaled Paris and Madrid.

Perched like a sentinel on the rocky spur of Mount Pirchiriano, the Sacra di San Michele has guarded the Susa Valley for over a millennium, its silhouette etched against the Alpine sky in a profile that inspired Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose.” Founded between 983 and 987 by the hermit Giovanni Vincenzo on the ruins of a Roman castrum, this Benedictine abbey grew into a pivotal waypoint on the Via Francigena, the great pilgrimage route from Canterbury to Rome. The approach is a pilgrimage in itself: the Scalone dei Morti — the Staircase of the Dead — climbs steeply beneath arches where the bones of monks once rested in niches, leading to the Portale dello Zodiaco, a 12th-century masterpiece of Romanesque sculpture where zodiac signs and biblical scenes intertwine in grey-green stone. Inside, the church’s nave soars with Gothic verticality added centuries later, while the crypt holds the oldest core, its columns recycled from Roman buildings. From the panoramic terraces, the gaze sweeps from the Sacra’s own bell tower across the valley to the Alpine peaks of the Rocciamelone and, on clear days, the distant spire of Turin’s Mole Antonelliana. It is a place where faith, geology, and history converge in breathtaking verticality.

Crowning a hill above the Susa Valley, the Castello di Rivoli is a striking palimpsest of Savoyard history and contemporary vision. Begun in the 13th century as a military stronghold, transformed by Juvarra into an unfinished Baroque palace of staggering scale, and left a romantic ruin for two centuries, it was reborn in 1984 as Italy’s first museum of contemporary art. Today, the raw brick walls and exposed vaults of the Manica Lunga — a 140-meter-long gallery once meant for royal portraits — host site-specific installations by Arte Povera masters and global avant-garde artists. The tension between the castle’s imperial architecture and the radical art within creates a dialogue unique in Europe.

Ivrea stands as a living manifesto of 20th-century utopian industrialism, where Adriano Olivetti’s visionary fusion of technology, community, and design earned UNESCO recognition in 2018. Between the 1930s and 1960s, this Piedmontese town became the world’s typewriter capital — and a laboratory for social innovation. Olivetti built not just factories but workers’ housing with gardens, a nursery school, a library, and a canteen serving farm-to-table meals decades before the term existed. The rationalist architecture — clean lines, glass curtain walls, integrated green spaces — speaks a language of human-scaled modernity. Today, the former Officine ICO complex hosts exhibitions and startups, while the Social Services Center’s floating staircase still inspires architects. Ivrea isn’t a museum piece; it’s a proposition: that work, beauty, and dignity can coexist.