[ ITINERARY · THE DISPATCH ]
Two Days in Turin: Chocolate, Royal Palaces, and Italy's First Capital
Turin is elegant, slightly mysterious, and weirdly underrated. It gave the world the aperitivo, gianduja chocolate, and a film museum inside a giant spire. Two days is enough to fall hard for it.
A 2 days in Turin itinerary for the city everyone skips
Turin gets skipped. People bomb past it on the way to the Alps or the Cinque Terre, and they have no idea what they’re missing. I almost did the same. I’m so glad I didn’t.
Because Turin is the elegant one. It was Italy’s first capital, the seat of the royal house of Savoy, and it carries itself like it. Eighteen kilometres of arcaded streets so you can café-hop in the rain. Grand baroque squares. A faint air of the occult (it’s supposedly a corner of two “magic triangles,” which the locals will tell you about with a straight face). And the food — this is the home of the aperitivo, of gianduja chocolate, of vermouth. Two days. Eat and drink your way through. Here’s the plan.
Day 1: Cafés, mummies, and the city’s elegance
Begin where Turin begins: a historic café. The grand 18th- and 19th-century cafés here are institutions — Caffè Al Bicerin (open since 1763) is where you order the city’s signature drink, the bicerin: espresso, drinking chocolate, and cream in layers in a little glass, no stirring. It is rich enough to count as a meal and it is glorious. Cavour and Nietzsche drank here, supposedly. Sit at the marble counter and feel fancy.
Walk it off through Piazza San Carlo, the gorgeous arcaded square locals call the city’s drawing room, then over to the Museo Egizio — the Egyptian Museum. Here’s the thing that surprised me: it’s the most important collection of Egyptian antiquities anywhere outside Cairo. Statues, sarcophagi, a whole reconstructed tomb. Book a timed ticket online (around 18 euros) and give it a solid two hours.
Afternoon: the Quadrilatero Romano, the old grid of narrow streets that’s now the buzzy nightlife quarter. As evening comes, this is where you do aperitivo — and Turin does it properly, with a drink (a Vermouth-based one, ideally, since vermouth was basically invented here) buying you a whole spread of free snacks. Make that your dinner if you want. Many locals do.
Day 2: Cinema in a spire, and the royals
Start with the Mole Antonelliana — Turin’s symbol, a wildly tall spire that was meant to be a synagogue and is now the Museo Nazionale del Cinema, and it’s the most fun museum in the city. The displays spiral up around a vast open hall where you lie back on red chaise longues and watch clips on the ceiling. Then take the panoramic glass lift straight up the middle of the spire to a viewing platform — on a clear day the Alps line up behind the city and it knocks the wind clean out of you. (Sorry. Gorgeous. It’s just gorgeous.)
| Day | Morning | Afternoon | Evening |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bicerin + Egyptian Museum | Piazza San Carlo + shopping | Aperitivo in the Quadrilatero |
| 2 | Mole cinema museum | Royal Palace + Galleria Sabauda | Final Piedmont dinner |
Next, the Palazzo Reale — the Savoy royal palace, a complex of opulent state rooms, the Royal Armoury, and the Galleria Sabauda picture gallery, all on one ticket. It’s also where the Holy Shroud is kept (in the cathedral next door, not usually on display, but the chapel is part of the story). Even if you’re palaced-out from elsewhere in Italy, the sheer Savoy swagger here is worth a wander.
And if you’ve got a spare hour and a sweet tooth that hasn’t quit, hop the metro out to the Lingotto — the old Fiat factory with the test track on the roof, the one from The Italian Job. You can actually walk the banked track up top now; it’s free and gloriously weird, this ghost of industrial Turin curving against the Alps. The car that made the city rich, and the chocolate that made it famous, both born from the same stubborn Piedmontese knack for turning scarcity into something better. I love that about this place. It never had Rome’s ruins or Venice’s looks, so it just quietly got good at everything else — coffee, cinema, vermouth, hazelnuts, cars — and waited for the rest of us to catch up.
Spend your last afternoon back under the arcades — duck into Eataly if you want a food-hall feast, or browse the antiques and book stalls. And for the last dinner, go full Piedmont: agnolotti del plin (tiny hand-pinched stuffed pasta), a vitello tonnato, and a glass of Barolo or Barbera from the hills just south of the city. It is one of the great food regions of the world and nobody outside Italy seems to have noticed.
A couple of honest things. Turin can feel a little serious, even austere, compared to Rome or Naples — the the buttoned-up grandeur is part of its charm but it’s not a party town. And Mondays close a lot of museums, so don’t waste your one full day on a Monday. Plan around it.
But that quiet confidence is exactly the appeal. Turin doesn’t shout. It pours you a layered chocolate coffee, points at the Alps from the top of a spire, and lets the rest of the tourists drive right past. Their loss.
Go to Turin before the secret gets out — and bring an empty bag for the chocolate.
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