Turin
Baroque architecture, serious cafés, and arcades to duck into.
Turin sits in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy, and it’s known for its baroque architecture and its very serious cafés. The city is full of portici, arcades you can step into out of both the sun and a storm.
I’ve been once, on a italy-2023 with my family, visiting friends who live there.
What to Eat and Drink
Freedom. This pasticceria was a few blocks from where we stayed, and it has some of the best gluten-free pastries I’ve ever had.
Bicerin. Thick hot chocolate, espresso, and whipped cream in layers, said to have been invented at Caffè al Bicerin in the Piazza della Consolata. It’s sweet and warming, and would be very good on a cold day. The local tradition is not to stir it: you dip your spoon to the bottom and bring up a bit of each layer at once.
Places to Shop
Mercato Centrale. It doesn’t get much better than buying food somewhere like this. Butchers, cheesemongers, bakers, salumerie, fishmongers. Just outside the permanent building there’s a spot to buy produce from the farmers themselves.
Notable Walks
The Basilica of Superga. The church is beautiful and worth the trip on its own merits, but walking down from the hill it sits on is a fine way to escape the city for a morning. Take the bus out to the Sassi-Superga stop, then ride the vintage wood-interior tramway to the top. There are trail signs along the way, though it’s probably easiest to have maps on your phone so you know which direction you’re meant to be going. Picnic tables near the top of the trail make a good lunch stop. The tramway has several stops on the way down, so you can do what we did and walk only part of the hill before riding the rest.
A church crawl. Always worth doing in an Italian city, and Turin is no exception. The Santuario della Consolata is one of the most dramatic churches in the city, and it was my favorite of the ones we saw.