A Portrait of Turin

Turin is one of the prettiest, liveliest, and most intriguing cities in Northern Italy. As the hometown of car manufacturer Fiat, however, Turin is often mislabeled an "Italian Detroit," and neighboring Milan and Genoa get more press (and tourists). This is entirely unfair. I'd go so far as to call Turin the most genteel city in Italy; its gracious urban fabric is a mix of broad Parisian boulevards, leafy London-style residential squares, and elegant coffeehouses that rival those of Vienna.

Come February, the world's attention will be focused less on the host city than on the Olympic athletes setting new records in Turin's stadiums and on the nearby slopes of the Val di Susa and Sestriere—and an upcoming article will be devoted to tips on getting tickets and finding lodging during the Games. But first, let's take a peek at Turin itself, an underrated city of baroque palazzi, frescoed cafés, and brilliant museums.

The Most Genteel City in Italy

"Torino is the city with the most beautiful natural location," Le Corbusier once said. As a devotee of straight lines, the architect must have loved Turin's stately grid street plan, a vestige of its ancient Roman roots. This grid, lined by arcaded palaces, fits into a languid curve of the mighty Po River, and the city is hemmed in by green hills and framed against a backdrop of glacier-capped Alps.

Each evening during the citywide passeggiata, Torinese stroll under the city's arcades from café to café, trading gossip as they sip bicerin (a delicious blend of espresso, hot cocoa, and whipped cream) at bar counters crowded with a dizzying array of elaborate canapés and creamy gianduotti (hazelnut-infused chocolates) free for the nibbling. As the evening wears on, people switch to aperitivi—the original aperatif, vermouth, was developed in Turin in the late 1700s and was later made famous by a local outfit called Martini e Rossi.

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Turin is a distinctly cosmopolitan city. The windows of real estate agents are as likely to be hawking properties in Provence as in Piemonte, and there is a striking number of bookshops and Asian and African art galleries. The closest you can get to "ethnic cuisine" in most Italian cities are McDonald's and a few low-key Chinese restaurants marked by red paper lanterns, but in downtown Turin, you'll find everything from Japanese, Brazilian, and Mongolian to Jordanian, Kurdish, and Siberian restaurants. (Actually, I tried the sibir DIY stir-fry in the Siberian joint—Sibiriaki, at Via Belezia 8g—and it was quite good).

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Not that the local cooking isn't stupendous: spiced tomino cheese, agnolotti (meat-filled pasta pillows often served in a ragu of roasted meat), tajarin egg noodles topped with porcini or shavings of white truffles from Alba, and bagna cauda (raw veggies to dip in a "hot bath" of olive oil, garlic, and anchovies). Those air-puffed grissini (bread sticks) that you now find in breadbaskets across Italy were invented in Turin to aid the delicate digestion of Prince Vittorio Amadeo II.

Plus, Turin is the capital of the Piemonte region, whose vineyards produce some of Italy's heartiest and greatest red wines, including Barolo, Barbera, and Barbaresco. In fact, this year, along with the usual "Official Olympic" soft drinks, airlines, and clothing outfitters, a series of Olympic-label wines is already on sale. What's more, you can toast your country's victories with spumante, the famous sparkling white wine from nearby Asti.

Turin's creative patrimony isn't limited to the standard Italian mix of Roman remains, medieval palaces, Renaissance paintings, and baroque churches. Sure, Turin has plenty of those, but its top attractions are a more eclectic group, including one of the world's top Egyptian museums, a fascinating cinema museum housed in perhaps the oddest building in Italy, and one of the holiest relics in the Christian faith.

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