Torino,
under the arcades.

Turin's skyline is essentially one building: a 167-metre dome-and-spire originally commissioned as a synagogue, abandoned mid-construction, and finished as a monument to national unity. It now houses the National Museum of Cinema, and the glass lift that runs straight up through the nave to a panoramic terrace is, on a clear day, the best fifteen minutes in the city.

The museum itself is the main event: a spiralling collection of pre-cinema optical toys, sets, and costumes wrapped around the open interior, with the lift departure built into the visit rather than bolted on.

The literal and political centre of old Turin: a vast square ringed by porticoes with the medieval-turned-baroque Palazzo Madama sitting in the middle like a piece of furniture, and the Palazzo Reale — the actual Savoy residence, all gilt and armour and a garden by Le Nôtre's pupils — closing one side.

Palazzo Madama alone is worth the stop: a Roman gate became a medieval castle became Filippo Juvarra's baroque façade, three buildings stacked in one, with a civic art museum inside spanning that entire span of centuries.

The world's oldest museum dedicated entirely to Egypt, and after Cairo's, its largest collection — founded in 1824 on a haul assembled by Napoleon's consul in Egypt, Bernardino Drovetti. The basement level, all sarcophagi and low light, and the upper Gallery of Kings, lined with statues under a mirrored ceiling, are the two moments people remember.

The intact tomb of the architect Kha and his wife Merit, discovered undisturbed in 1906, is the single object most worth planning a route around.

The original Roman grid, still legible in the street plan, now doing double duty as Turin's evening district. By day it's small workshops, vintage shops, and produce stalls in narrow lanes; by 7pm the same lanes fill with people standing outside bacari with a glass of something and a plate of food that came free with it — the Torinese aperitivo, taken seriously.

Via Sant'Agostino and Via delle Orfane are the two streets to wander without a fixed plan.

Called "Turin's drawing room" for good reason — a rectangular baroque square closed at one end by a pair of near-identical churches, San Carlo and Santa Cristina, with an equestrian statue of Duke Emanuele Filiberto in the middle. It's also where two of Italy's oldest cafés still operate, and where the porticoes lining Via Roma converge.

Sit rather than photograph: the square rewards ten minutes with a coffee more than it does a walk-through.

A long riverside park along the Po, big enough to actually breathe in, with the botanical garden of the University of Turin tucked inside it. The curiosity here is the Borgo Medievale: a full "medieval village" built for the 1884 exhibition, using real construction techniques rather than stage-set facades, so it now reads less like a theme park than a very convincing recreation.

It pairs well with a bike ride or a slow lunch by the water, especially in shoulder-season weather.

A domed basilica on a hill east of the city, reachable by a 1884 rack funicular that's part of the trip's appeal. Built by the same architect as the Mole's rival landmark, Filippo Juvarra, as thanks for a Savoy victory, it now holds the royal tombs of the House of Savoy and, on the terrace outside, one of the few spots where you can see the whole city with the Alps behind it in a single frame.

The hillside is also where the 1949 Torino F.C. air disaster happened; a small memorial marks the crash site behind the basilica.

The largest of the Savoy residences ringing Turin, and a UNESCO World Heritage site in its own right — a hunting palace expanded into something closer to a Piedmontese Versailles, with a Great Gallery by Juvarra that outshines most of what's inside the city centre. The gardens alone, restored over two decades, are worth the trip.

It sits about 8km northwest of Turin, an easy half-day out by bus or car.

The largest open-air market in Europe, running six days a week in a square just north of the centre: produce, cheese, fish, and a long-running Saturday flea market (il Balon) threaded through the surrounding streets. It's the least curated place in this list, and the most honest read on the city outside its postcards.

Come hungry — the surrounding streets have some of the best-value, least-touristed food in Turin.