Torino Day 3
Monday 22nd June 2026
We found a new breakfast place this morning and have enjoyed the Italian version of smashed avocado on toast with 2 eggs. Great breakfast and it only cost us 5 euros ($8.50 AUD) each.
Avo on toast wityh 2 eggs
Once again, no plan, we were starting to discover many places were closed today. So we set off to take in the sites along via Roma. This street is still a work in progress. It extends from Piazza San Carlo to Piazza Castello. Most of the sections have been completed and are just fabulous to stroll through. It is a pedestrian only street, it’s very wide and nearly always shaded by the stunningly beautiful 4 story buildings that mirror each other, along each side of the street. They have massive stone columns creating the porticos. Every designer brand can be found in shops under the porticos.
Porticos of via Roma
Our wanderings through the porticos led us to the other end of Piazza Castello and the WW1 monument to the battle fought near Vittoria Veneto on the Italian front in 1918. It involved troops from Italy, UK, France and US fighting against the Austrian-Hungarian alliance. 7000 Italian personnel lost their lives in defeat of their enemy whose losses mounted to 30,000 killed and almost 500,000 captured.
Piazza Castello and the WW1 memorial to the batttle of Vittorio Venuto
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- Torino’s version of a small statue
We continued on past the Royal Palace of Turin to find it was open today, so we decided to escape the heat and bought some tickets. The wealth of royal families is staggering. The palace was incredible. The armoury hall had a display of mounted soldiers on horseback along with weapons, suits of armour and shields. I was soon to discover why all the horses looked so real – they were all taxidermied.
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- The Grand Staircase at the Royal Palace
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- The fresco on the ceiling of the Grand Staircase
Grand Staircase
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- Swiss Guards Room
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- Ceiling frescos
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- Tapestries adorned most of the walls
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- Tapestry detail
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- The Throne Room
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- Font finished in malachite (a copper ore) although difficult to see if it a very thick veneer or solid. I think it is solid which means it was a carved from a very big lump of malachite!!
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- The armoury
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- Ceiling frescos in the Armoury
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- Chainmail tunic in large ringlets with smaller ringlets for the headpiece suspended from the metal crown. Almost as good as the craftsman ship in Charters Towers where the handmade chainmail is still in vogue.
Ready for battle – check out the double hinged bridle for the bit – one for the battle reins and the other for general use. This horse needed a strong neck!!!
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- for morning ablutions
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- The corner suite
The baby’s cradle – no risk of an understatement
We were also able to view the Royal Biblioteca or Royal Library
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- The Royal Library
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- The central curved bookcase
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- The upstairs section
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- These volumes were 75cm tall
For dinner tonight we tried modern Italian. It was a large venue by Torino standards with a flash cocktail bar. Some of the traditional dishes had a modern twist and it seems as though the locals love it, we were the only foreigners in the place. Dinner was a shared antipasto of egg plant lasagna, egg flan and raviola. The main was agnoletti with a simple butter sauce?????
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