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He finally went to Italy: Turin

Updated 10/17/2025

Turin, 10/5/2025

A day trip from Milan to see the Galleria Sabauda (Savoy), part of the Royal Museums. The collection was amazing, and high speed train got me there and back in an hour each way but at €38 per ride maybe I should have just gone and stayed there for a night or two.

Then there was another wrinkle - when trying to buy tickets online, there were none for today. Sold out? Okay, for €3 more I sprang for the year-round pass, no biggie. I get there and it turns out it was free! First Sunday of every month or something like that. Most expensive free ticket of my life!

Impressions: A lot of epically-sized piazzas, and the Torinese seem to really like covered gallery walkways. That part reminded me of La Rochelle in France, except Turin is WAY nicer. And bigger, yet relatively compact - look down the perfectly straight boulevards and you can see greenery one way and the Alps the other.

Piazza San Carlo Piazza San Carlo. Thanks to the sun for coming out, it's been cloudy until today.
View of Turin from the Royal Museum A view from the Royal Museum; those are the Alps in the background. A few of them have snow already!
Galleries everywhere I think walkable, covered ways like this are called galleries? Well, Turin has a ton of them. Is the weather usually bad here?
Turin street with the Alps in the background WAY in the background you can see the Alps.

Galleria Sabauda

In English they're the House of Savoy, Italian royalty since even before the Medicis. They've accumulated a lot of riches and art over the years.

Royal Museums, exterior
The palace council room The council room. There are people who still consider this kind of thing the height of elegance... especially if there's more gold.
Ornate gilded ceiling Ah, there's the gold I was looking for!
Palace ceiling frescoes 1
Palace ceiling frescoes 2
Palace dining room Hey, could you please pass the salt?

Time for art

The Judgement of Solomon by Francesco Podesti The Judgement of Solomon by Francesco Podesti
The Thirst Suffered by the First Crusaders at the Siege of Jerusalem The Thirst Suffered by the First Crusaders at the Siege of Jerusalem by Francesco Hayez

Before you even get to the Galleria, you go through the palace and are treated to wall-sized paintings such as these beauties. I would have jumped over the velvet rope to get a better angle and fix the awful highlights, but I was told the royal dungeons are still in use and are definitely no fun.

Lots more art from the Galleria Sabauda