The Parco La Mandria, north-west of Turin, is the largest remnant of the royal hunting estates of the House of Savoy, and the Borgo Castello at its centre was once the heart of the estate. The word mandria means a herd, and the park began as a stud and breeding farm for horses and cattle on the plain, with the woods kept for the hunt. Today the park is a protected area of about three thousand hectares, surrounded by a wall, where visitors walk or cycle between oaks, hornbeams and meadows, and where deer and wild boar still live.
The Savoy kings came here to hunt, and the best-known resident is Vittorio Emanuele II, the first king of a united Italy. He is said to have loved the park above all his other estates, and he lived at the Borgo Castello with Rosa Vercellana, known as Bela Rosin, his companion for many years and later his wife in a morganatic marriage. The buildings of the borgo include a small castle, stables, a church and the long courtyards of a working farm, and parts have been restored and opened. Check the opening days before you go, as access varies through the year.
The park is a pleasant place to leave the bike and walk, and the nearby roads are good for quiet riding. Northwards, the plain gives way to the Lanzo valleys, and eastwards the hills of the Turin side rise to the basilica of Superga, a splendid baroque church on a ridge with a view over the city and the Alps. The Villa della Regina and the Sacro Monte di Belmonte, also on your ride, show a different side of the region's history, a royal summer house and a pilgrimage route with chapels. The ring roads around Turin are heavy with traffic on weekdays, so pick the weekends or the early mornings.
Druento, with eight thousand people, is the closest place for fuel and a coffee, and Venaria Reale is a bigger town a few kilometres east. Piedmont is a good country for the table, with agnolotti, bagna cauda, vitello tonnato and hazelnut cakes, and the wine of the nearby hills is Barbera and Dolcetto. Spring is lovely in the park, with new leaves and wildflowers, and October brings amber foliage. In midsummer the plain is humid and the mosquitoes are persistent.