Piazza Castello

When Duke Emanuele Filiberto moved the Savoy capital to Turin in 1563, he chose this square as the new civic centre, and the city's famous grid of straight, porticoed streets was laid out radiating from it. More than four and a half centuries later, the piazza still functions exactly as intended: the hinge around which the rest of Turin turns.

Palazzo Madama occupies the centre of the square, the Royal Palace and its Royal Gardens close the northern side, and the Teatro Regio opera house and Palazzo Chiablese line the remaining edges — a single space that puts Savoy political power, courtly culture and public ceremony all within view of each other at once, rather than scattering them across the city.

Beneath the square and the surrounding palaces runs a network of underground galleries and tunnels, built up over centuries and once used for the city's defence and for moving people unseen between buildings of power. Parts of this hidden Turin — military galleries, royal ice houses, church cellars — can still be visited today on dedicated guided tours of "Torino Sotterranea."

Palazzo Madama itself takes its name from the "Madame Reali," the royal women — first Christine of France, later Marie Jeanne Baptiste of Savoy-Nemours — who each in turn made it their residence and left their mark on it. After dark, the square's floodlit facades and porticoes make it one of the most photographed views in Turin.

Piazza Castello is the natural hub for getting your bearings in Turin: Via Roma, the city's main shopping street, opens off it, and Palazzo Madama and the Royal Palace sit right on its edges, so most walking routes through the centre pass through here at some point.

It works equally well as a starting point for a day of sightseeing or as a place to pause between them — there's ample space to sit, and the square is particularly atmospheric in the evening once the floodlighting comes on.