Your Turin sights/ restaurant/shopping recs
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 1,285
Your Turin sights/ restaurant/shopping recs
A co-worker and I are heading to Turin next month to present our winning projects at an international conference. We've decided to take a free day before and two days after the conference to explore the city a little. We've never been there.
Your suggestions for sights, restaurants and shopping (in my case, window shopping only) would be much appreciated. The event we're attending includes a dinner at Eataly.
Thanks!
Your suggestions for sights, restaurants and shopping (in my case, window shopping only) would be much appreciated. The event we're attending includes a dinner at Eataly.
Thanks!
#2
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 2,505
Three days won't be enough to see what there is to see in Turin 
The Egyptian Museum the second biggest in the world after Cairo.
The Galeria Sabauda (paintings collected by the House of Savoy)
Near Eatitaly in the Liingotto commercial center the Agnelli Museum (modern art)
Take the little train to Superga where the Kings of Savoy are buried.
Palazzo Madame, the Royal Palace (I enjoyed the visit of the kitchens)
Mole Antonellinana and its movies museum is fascinating
Porta Palazzo and its huge open air market.
Miles and miles of porticos, shops on Via Roma
Saint John the Baptist Church where the Holy Shroud is kept.
Sit in one of the famous historical cafés (San Carlo, Fioro, etc.) and order a "bicerin" (coffee, chocolate and milk)
The Egyptian Museum the second biggest in the world after Cairo.
The Galeria Sabauda (paintings collected by the House of Savoy)
Near Eatitaly in the Liingotto commercial center the Agnelli Museum (modern art)
Take the little train to Superga where the Kings of Savoy are buried.
Palazzo Madame, the Royal Palace (I enjoyed the visit of the kitchens)
Mole Antonellinana and its movies museum is fascinating
Porta Palazzo and its huge open air market.
Miles and miles of porticos, shops on Via Roma
Saint John the Baptist Church where the Holy Shroud is kept.
Sit in one of the famous historical cafés (San Carlo, Fioro, etc.) and order a "bicerin" (coffee, chocolate and milk)
#4
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 4,131
You might find this helpful:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/200...nk-italy/print
We almost made it through the list!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/200...nk-italy/print
We almost made it through the list!
#5
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 432
I agree, 3 days is not much for Turin, but better then no days!
Do you like chocolate? Torino is famous for it's chocolate houses, our favourites are Pfatisch and Gobino (google them).
Innumerable restaurants of course, try Sotto Il Mole, next to the cinema museum at Mole Antoneliana, or Tre Galline in the old town, I presume your dinner will be at Guido's at Eataly - enjoy!
If you have time for a trip outside of town, the Sacre di San Michele, about 30 minutes by bus is stunning on a clear day (remember the Name of the Rose?)www.sacradisanmichele.com/
Turin tourist website is very good www.turismotorino.org/
May I ask what is the conference?
Do you like chocolate? Torino is famous for it's chocolate houses, our favourites are Pfatisch and Gobino (google them).
Innumerable restaurants of course, try Sotto Il Mole, next to the cinema museum at Mole Antoneliana, or Tre Galline in the old town, I presume your dinner will be at Guido's at Eataly - enjoy!
If you have time for a trip outside of town, the Sacre di San Michele, about 30 minutes by bus is stunning on a clear day (remember the Name of the Rose?)www.sacradisanmichele.com/
Turin tourist website is very good www.turismotorino.org/
May I ask what is the conference?
#6
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 1,285
I'll post the name of the conference in my trip report...
Thanks for the out of town suggestions. I suspect we'll be staying in the city, but if we do venture outside, visiting the Sacre de San Michele would be a great idea.
Thanks for the out of town suggestions. I suspect we'll be staying in the city, but if we do venture outside, visiting the Sacre de San Michele would be a great idea.
#7
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 432
I forgot to mention get yourselves Torino + Piemonte cards from any tourist information desk (there should be one at the airport); they come in 2,3 and more days, are quite inexpensive and allow you travel on all public transport plus entrance to most museums and galleries.
#8
Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 2,355
Torino is one of the great baroque cities of the world, and her greatest baroque architects are Guarino Guarini and Francesco Juvarra - any building by them (particularly by Guarini) is definitely a top sight. I suggest reading a guide book...
#9
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 1,285
"I suggest reading a guide book..."
Franco, your patronizing comment was not needed. I am aware that guidebooks exist - I have been quoted in several of them. However, we just found out that we're going to Turin and haven't had time to pick one up yet. And I wanted to benefit from first-hand Fodorite advice.
Please go condescend to someone else.
Franco, your patronizing comment was not needed. I am aware that guidebooks exist - I have been quoted in several of them. However, we just found out that we're going to Turin and haven't had time to pick one up yet. And I wanted to benefit from first-hand Fodorite advice.
Please go condescend to someone else.
#10
Join Date: Jun 2008
Posts: 21,981
We got good prices on non-stop to Milano one year and made Turin our first stop.
The food was OMG. We ate at La Capannina, Via Donati, 1, tel. 011.54.54.05. We told the waiter what we liked and then put ourselves in his hands. He proceeded to wow us with 4 courses and then 2 desserts. Let me know if you want a list of the food.
Our hotel was the Albergo Astoria on Via XX Settembre, 4 and was on a bus route. We bought bus tickets at a nearby tabacco shop and took the bus to the Duomo to see the Shroud of Turin. Our docent was wonderful and, despite there being some question about the authenticity of same, gave a great talk.
Behind the Duomo is the Piazza Castello and there you will find the royal palace and shopping galleria.
We also went to the Mole. Much about cinema there. Took elevator to top and enjoyed the view then walked back to Via XX Setembre via the Po River.
Finally we did go to the Egyptian Museum. We had been to the British and Vatican Museums and felt they were "better" but that's subjective. There are over 40 art museums so do check the other links for those-we never made it to Pinacoteca Giovanni/Agnelli.
Agree with those who say enjoy the architecture and the porticos. If you enjoy Turin, get thee to Bologna on your next trip!
The food was OMG. We ate at La Capannina, Via Donati, 1, tel. 011.54.54.05. We told the waiter what we liked and then put ourselves in his hands. He proceeded to wow us with 4 courses and then 2 desserts. Let me know if you want a list of the food.
Our hotel was the Albergo Astoria on Via XX Settembre, 4 and was on a bus route. We bought bus tickets at a nearby tabacco shop and took the bus to the Duomo to see the Shroud of Turin. Our docent was wonderful and, despite there being some question about the authenticity of same, gave a great talk.
Behind the Duomo is the Piazza Castello and there you will find the royal palace and shopping galleria.
We also went to the Mole. Much about cinema there. Took elevator to top and enjoyed the view then walked back to Via XX Setembre via the Po River.
Finally we did go to the Egyptian Museum. We had been to the British and Vatican Museums and felt they were "better" but that's subjective. There are over 40 art museums so do check the other links for those-we never made it to Pinacoteca Giovanni/Agnelli.
Agree with those who say enjoy the architecture and the porticos. If you enjoy Turin, get thee to Bologna on your next trip!
#11
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 1,285
Thanks! I'm not that big on Egyptology - but have been to the British Museum and also the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, which is no slouch in that field of study. I think we'll skip the Egyptian museum this time.
Our hotel for part of the trip is the conference hotel, but we have booked another hotel for the extra nights. We looked at the cafe choices listed in the Guardian article - can't wait to try some out!
Thank you also for the Bologna suggestion - right now, except for business travel, we're sticking close to home due to Raisin's lymphoma, mostly day trips when the weather is good.
Our hotel for part of the trip is the conference hotel, but we have booked another hotel for the extra nights. We looked at the cafe choices listed in the Guardian article - can't wait to try some out!
Thank you also for the Bologna suggestion - right now, except for business travel, we're sticking close to home due to Raisin's lymphoma, mostly day trips when the weather is good.
#13
Join Date: Apr 2005
Posts: 359
We're just back from a week in Turin, unintentionally arrived on the day the whole of Italy launched the celebrations of the country's 150th anniversary, with Turin being one of the main centres of celebrations. Absolute traffic mayhem the day we arrived but much quieter the rest of the week. We managed to miss Berlusconi's visit but saw some of the protestors carrying their placards home afterwards.
Turin is a great city for just wandering about and window shopping, especially now when most of the shops have put in a real effort with window displays based on the colours of the Italian flag.
It has bcome much more tourist friendly since hosting the winter olympics in 2006 and this is still going on. Among other things this means that guide books and even some web sites may be out of date.
We never actually went into any of the museums or galleries, we kept leaving them for when it rained and it never did, but friends who have been there have said they are very impressive. Check at the tourist office (or possibly on the web site beforehand) to see what special exhibitions and other events are being held to celebrate the 150th, they'll have all sorts of things going on for most of the rest of the year.
The Torino & Piemonte card is worth checking out, but confirm exactly what discount it gives you on entry to museums etc, it often covers the full price but not always. If you would mainly use the card for public transport you may be better just buying a day ticket that covers all the buses, trams and metro (the metro now goes as far as Lingotto, close to Eataly). I think you can only buy a day ticket at official transport authority shops (GTT). There's one just inside the western entrance to Porto Nuova station and another about half a mile north on the corner of Via Cavour and Via San Tomassino.
Our eating out preferences are not typically Italian as we rarely eat flour, though we did allow ourselves a couple of emergency pizzas. We also didn't partake of the "Aperitivo" scene as the buffets were often flour based. Restaurants, of whatever standard and level of pretension, nealy all restrict themselves to Italian style food, there were far fewer ethnic type restaurants than in other big cities. We found a few Japanese places but not much else. We ate twice at Ristorante Peppino, Via Mercanti 7/H. You could have a decent meal and a half litre of wine for about 20 euros if you don't make the mistake I made - tried to be Italian, ordered antipasto, prima and secondi and had to send the secondi back because I was full to bursting. We paid more than twice as much at Reginella, Via Arsenale 41/c and didn't think the food was as good. It was also very noisy, mainly due to loud conversations between the staff.
All the restaurants have their own opening hours and most of them close for one day per week. Surprisingly, a lot of them were closed when we went out on the Saturday evening - might be wise to book as the ones that were open often had queues outside waiting to get in. We stumbled on Osashi Two, Via Ratazzi 1 Bis, a gem of a place if you like Japanese style food. At lunch time, Mister Hu on Via Mercanti does an "all you can eat" buffet for under 10 Euros as well as a pricier la carte menu. It doesn't look smart from the outside but is OK insude and the buffet was as good as some I've seen at twice the price. Finally, Ristorante Kipling, Via Giuseppe Mazzini 10, Italian food with an eastern accent. It's not cheap and the drinks (including water) were overpriced, but the food was superb. We ate there at lunchtime and it was quiet.
You don't sound like you're on the tightest of budgets but if you are, another oriental place we found was Hua Qiao on Via Sacchi (the street that runs down the west side of Porto Nuova station). They'll fill you with simple Chinese food for under 15 euros - less at lunch time.
Interestingly, even the oriental restaurants presented their menus in Italian style, antipasti, primi etc. Having said that, even in the mainstream Italian places I never saw anybody (apart from silly me) ordering a full meal like this. Even the Italians just chose from whatever courses they wanted.
Eataly is in the basement of a huge "slow food" supermarket at Lingotto. The supermarket floor has several smaller eating places, each one nominally specialising in a particular kind of food. The area between Lingotto and Puerta Nuovo is called San Salvario, until recently it had a reputation as the centre of Turin's seedier side but we saw nothing to alarm or offend when we walked through, admittedly in the middle of the day. I'm told that San Salvario has some very good restaurants of varying styles, and being that wee bit out of the centre the prices are lower. Sadly it was one of the many things w didn;t have time to explore.
Don't leave Turin without sampling at least one ice cream.
If you're a chocoholic, or even if you're not, one of the quirkier season tickets is the two day chocopass that buys you ten different samples (assuming you can face them in two days) of chocolate, drinking chocolate, chocolate cake etc for 12 euros. They also have an annual chocolate festival called ChocolaTO (TO being the abbreviation for Torino), this was in full swing when we visited but I think it will be finsihed by the time you go so you'll miss the map of Italy, complete with models of its most famous monuments, made entirely from 14 tonnes (yes, 14 tonnes) of chocolate.
Turin is a great city for just wandering about and window shopping, especially now when most of the shops have put in a real effort with window displays based on the colours of the Italian flag.
It has bcome much more tourist friendly since hosting the winter olympics in 2006 and this is still going on. Among other things this means that guide books and even some web sites may be out of date.
We never actually went into any of the museums or galleries, we kept leaving them for when it rained and it never did, but friends who have been there have said they are very impressive. Check at the tourist office (or possibly on the web site beforehand) to see what special exhibitions and other events are being held to celebrate the 150th, they'll have all sorts of things going on for most of the rest of the year.
The Torino & Piemonte card is worth checking out, but confirm exactly what discount it gives you on entry to museums etc, it often covers the full price but not always. If you would mainly use the card for public transport you may be better just buying a day ticket that covers all the buses, trams and metro (the metro now goes as far as Lingotto, close to Eataly). I think you can only buy a day ticket at official transport authority shops (GTT). There's one just inside the western entrance to Porto Nuova station and another about half a mile north on the corner of Via Cavour and Via San Tomassino.
Our eating out preferences are not typically Italian as we rarely eat flour, though we did allow ourselves a couple of emergency pizzas. We also didn't partake of the "Aperitivo" scene as the buffets were often flour based. Restaurants, of whatever standard and level of pretension, nealy all restrict themselves to Italian style food, there were far fewer ethnic type restaurants than in other big cities. We found a few Japanese places but not much else. We ate twice at Ristorante Peppino, Via Mercanti 7/H. You could have a decent meal and a half litre of wine for about 20 euros if you don't make the mistake I made - tried to be Italian, ordered antipasto, prima and secondi and had to send the secondi back because I was full to bursting. We paid more than twice as much at Reginella, Via Arsenale 41/c and didn't think the food was as good. It was also very noisy, mainly due to loud conversations between the staff.
All the restaurants have their own opening hours and most of them close for one day per week. Surprisingly, a lot of them were closed when we went out on the Saturday evening - might be wise to book as the ones that were open often had queues outside waiting to get in. We stumbled on Osashi Two, Via Ratazzi 1 Bis, a gem of a place if you like Japanese style food. At lunch time, Mister Hu on Via Mercanti does an "all you can eat" buffet for under 10 Euros as well as a pricier la carte menu. It doesn't look smart from the outside but is OK insude and the buffet was as good as some I've seen at twice the price. Finally, Ristorante Kipling, Via Giuseppe Mazzini 10, Italian food with an eastern accent. It's not cheap and the drinks (including water) were overpriced, but the food was superb. We ate there at lunchtime and it was quiet.
You don't sound like you're on the tightest of budgets but if you are, another oriental place we found was Hua Qiao on Via Sacchi (the street that runs down the west side of Porto Nuova station). They'll fill you with simple Chinese food for under 15 euros - less at lunch time.
Interestingly, even the oriental restaurants presented their menus in Italian style, antipasti, primi etc. Having said that, even in the mainstream Italian places I never saw anybody (apart from silly me) ordering a full meal like this. Even the Italians just chose from whatever courses they wanted.
Eataly is in the basement of a huge "slow food" supermarket at Lingotto. The supermarket floor has several smaller eating places, each one nominally specialising in a particular kind of food. The area between Lingotto and Puerta Nuovo is called San Salvario, until recently it had a reputation as the centre of Turin's seedier side but we saw nothing to alarm or offend when we walked through, admittedly in the middle of the day. I'm told that San Salvario has some very good restaurants of varying styles, and being that wee bit out of the centre the prices are lower. Sadly it was one of the many things w didn;t have time to explore.
Don't leave Turin without sampling at least one ice cream.
If you're a chocoholic, or even if you're not, one of the quirkier season tickets is the two day chocopass that buys you ten different samples (assuming you can face them in two days) of chocolate, drinking chocolate, chocolate cake etc for 12 euros. They also have an annual chocolate festival called ChocolaTO (TO being the abbreviation for Torino), this was in full swing when we visited but I think it will be finsihed by the time you go so you'll miss the map of Italy, complete with models of its most famous monuments, made entirely from 14 tonnes (yes, 14 tonnes) of chocolate.
#15
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 1,285
Thanks to everyone - we had a very good time in Turin (plus a half-day in Milan). Two thumbs up for: the Hotel Victoria, the terrific gelato at Cremeria Alice, the aperitivo scene at Caffe Torino, and the wonderful L'Erbolario store. Trip report coming soon!
#16
Join Date: May 2003
Posts: 4,074
Has anyone mention the Cafes, a must in Torino, some have been there for ever, you can go to the counter and check the different sandwiches...delicious...
Also in most bars, there is a house drink, and some real good little things to eat on display on the counter, I never knew if they are always free or not....
Also in most bars, there is a house drink, and some real good little things to eat on display on the counter, I never knew if they are always free or not....
