Day trip to Turin

Another new Italian destination for this semester: Turin (called Torino in Italian). We booked the trip last Wednesday and went there yesterday, Friday. We thought Torino was one of the cities we had to go to this semester since it’s not so far from Milan, and many of the other Erasmus students of our university had been there to visit already. It was my first time there!

Once again, we went there by bus: we left Milan at 11. 30 and arrived in Torino at 13. 30. I thought these cities were closer to each other, like maybe a 30-minute drive, but it’s actually more of a 2-hour drive as you can see. The round-trip cost us €15. Just like I thought Torino was a small city, but it is actually kind of a big one (900 000 inhabitants), so yesterday was sort of a day for surprises in this city. We didn't really prepare anything special to do in Torino, just like usually do when we visit a new city. When we got off the bus, we just walked towards the center of the city and then walked around a little bit before searching on the Internet the most important things to do and see in Turin.

I didn’t expect so much from Torino: I knew some of my friends had been there already and said it was nice and recommended us to go. Some other also went there and didn't find it so special. So I just thought it would be a day of exploring a new city to make up our own mind on it and that it would be quick, like we would be done after like three hours, but it didn't really turn out like this.

The bus dropped us at the Vittorio Emanuele bus station, and we knew we would have to walk a little bit to arrive to the center, about 20 minutes. This walk was actually nicer than I expected: there were some pretty buildings to look at all around us and because of that the walk didn’t feel so long.

Our first stop was in the park of which you can see a picture just above. I do not know the name of this park, but we didn’t stay there so long. After a few minutes of walking around there, we decided to head over what the Internet said was one of the biggest and most popular street in Torino, Via Roma.

While we were walking towards it, we ended up on a famous square of the city, the Piazza San Carlo, so just stopped there for a few minutes. It felt very big to us, probably because there are not so many spaces that feel this big in Milan (except for the Piazza del Duomo of course), it was quite empty with no a lot of people, and the buildings all around had a very nice architecture. We admired it for a few minutes and then kept walking to Via Roma.

There are a lot of shops in this street, and at some point we found the Lego store, which had a very nice sculpture of the Mole Antonelliana that we could see through the window. We decided that this would be our next destination, as it is one of the main things to see in Turin. As you can see, deciding to go there was really random, just because we saw a sculpture of it in a store.

We walked a bit more and then we arrived there. I have to say that I was impressed by the beauty of the building. First, because of its height (actually more than 167 meters high), and second by the architecture that I really loved, especially with all the colors. “Mole” in Italian is a world that they use for buildings of monumental proportions, and I think this building deserves it. It was built in the 19th century. Inside of it is the National Museum of Cinema, for which you have to pay €5 to visit (we didn’t do this visit as we didn't want to "waste" time visiting museums).

After this we headed towards our next destination on our list of most important things to see in Torino, which was the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. While walking towards it we saw some more beautiful buildings, and I particularly liked these arches that can be found in several streets across the city. Honestly, I wasn't expecting Turin to be a city with such a nice architecture in every single street, but it turned out to be and I couldn't have been more happy about it as this is one of the things that I like the most during a trip!

Once we arrived to the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, I had this impression of a very huge square again, even more than for the Piazza San Carlo because this one was even bigger as there was a road crossing it. This piazza was very pretty and the buildings were all symmetrical from one side of the square to the other, on each side of the road. It was amazing, I was really not expecting something like this in Turin.

We walked down the piazza and on the other side there was some sort of river with bridges leading to another part of the city. We crossed the bridge right in front of the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, turned around and got a pretty nice view! This part of the city reminded me a lot of Paris, with the Seine, the bridges, the canals all along and the wonderful buildings behind all of that.

Facing the bridge was a church, with stairs that offered a view from higher of the city. We climbed them and here is what we got:

As you can see on the picture, this view was also pretty amazing. This part of the city was a little bit noisier because of the big intersections and all the cars. I think it was one of the main road to get inside the city. We decided to go back towards the river and walk along it to have a quieter environment.

It was indeed much quieter and relaxing.

We walked some more and crossed another bridge to try and get on the other side of the river. There was some sort of path that had been made and led to a nice viewing point on the river and the city behind it. What I also really liked is that we could see the mountains from the Alps behind and that was really pretty, even more as the sun was starting to go down behind the mountains. Such a beautiful view.

As the sun was going down and it was getting a little dark, and we still had a few hours before going to our bus to go back to Milan, we stopped in a coffee to have our first real break of all day (we had had lunch on the bus to get to Torino so we had not stopped walking since we got off the bus). We spent about one hour and a half in a coffee in the street right after piazza Vittorio Emanuele. By the way, you really should order a hot chocolate in an Italian coffee someday: there are so thick and so good, you need to try.

After that we walked back to our bus, which left at 20. 00 and we were back in Milan at 22. 00.

To me, Torino was an unsuspected pretty city. It is very vast and we walked a lot during that day (about 15 kilometers). If you want to see the most important things in the city, one afternoon is enough. What I enjoyed the most was the architecture: the buildings are truly beautiful. I think we saw the main monuments and we got a pretty good idea of the city. The fact that is has some water makes it better according to me, I think that’s one thing that is missing in Milan.

So, to sum up, if you get the chance, go visit Torino!

Photo gallery