Turin was Italy's first capital, and the Palazzo Madama in the middle of Piazza Castello was its first parliament. When the kingdom was proclaimed in 1861, the Senate met in a room inside this strange building, a medieval castle with a baroque facade added in the early eighteenth century by the architect Filippo Juvarra. The name comes from the royal widows, the Madama Reali, who lived here in the seventeenth century, among them Christine of France. Today it houses the city's museum of ancient art, and the staircase and facade are among the most beautiful in Italy. The whole ensemble of Savoy residences in and around Turin is listed by UNESCO.
Turin itself is a ride-in, park-and-walk city. The centre is a grid of broad arcaded streets, with a limited traffic zone that bikes cannot ignore, so find a garage or a car park outside the core and walk. The city has more than eight hundred thousand people, with fuel and every service, but traffic is heavy and tram lines and cobbles can be tricky in wet weather. The best riding lies outside, in the hills across the Po, where roads climb through woods to the Basilica of Superga, with a sweeping view of the Alps on a clear day.
The food and drink here are a pleasure. Turin invented the aperitivo culture around vermouth in the eighteenth century and gave the world gianduja, the hazelnut chocolate, and the bicerin, a layered drink of coffee, chocolate and cream served in small glasses. The old cafes along the arcades have preserved their nineteenth-century interiors, and a morning coffee and pastry at one of them is a ritual worth keeping. Lesna, a small village on the western edge of the metropolitan area, is the other nearby town on the list.
Piazza Castello is at its best in the early evening, when the light turns the stone gold and the cafe terraces fill. Wander the arcades, glance up at the facade and consider that this unlikely castle sheltered a parliament, a court and a library at different times. The mountains, white-topped in winter, close the view to the north.