Appartement - Torino

Little studio in the inner court of an ancient building (1700) designed by architect Juvarra in the very heart of downtown, the so called Quadrilatero Romano. It's been completely refurbishedin 2009 to take full advantage of the space and in just 30 square meters is divided into two environments: the entrance, from the inner court, you get directly in the kitchen (fully equipped. In the short corridor that leads to the living room there's the bathroom with a floor-level shower. Then there's the living room with a bamboo floor and a woodden mezzanine (to take advantage of the high vault ceiling) in which is the double bed; underneath it, in front of a wide 2 meters high window, there's a single divan-bed.
One of its most advantages is being located close to the main tourist attractions, easily reachable by foot, and to the pedestrian area of Via Garibaldi, the most famous shopping street in Turin togheter with Via Roma
The area is plenty of night spots, restaurants, bars and in the week-end night has traffic limitations.
At less more than 500 mt takes place the biggest outdoor market in Europe, the market of Porta Palazzo

The Quadrilatero Romano is the ideal place to start go sightseeing Turin because in the city centre are the main tourist attractions, all of them reachable in a short while thanks to pedestrian areas. Starting from Piazza Statuto you can reach Porta Nuova Station by foot walking along via Garibaldi (the first and well-know Turin commercial street) passing through piazza Castello (Royal Palace) and then choosing among via Roma (another well-known commercial street) under the archades to run into Piazza San Carlo (the so called Turin living room) or the two new pedestrian streets of Lagrange and Carlo Alberto, at the top of which stands the Egyptian Museum (the second in the world after the Cairo one).

In Piazza della Repubblica (called Porta Palazzo because of the Porta (gate) Palatina, the ruins of one of the ancient 4 access gates surrounding the Roman castrum) takes place the biggest outdoor market in Europe every morning and Saturday all day long. It's devided into several zones: one for classic vegetables and fruit selling, another one for farmers, two covered markets for butchers, bakers and food shops, an entire building fo seafood and one for clothes.
In the seafood market I suggest the stand nr 2, the several times awarded Master of Taste Pescheria Gallina of my friend Beppe. I suggest to buy fruit and vegetables from the farmers and the shop of bio-organic food Ditta Ceni.
In via Fiocchetto, close to Piazza della Repubblica there's the Dar Hal Hikma hamhamwith an arab restaurant, El Andalus.

Close to Borgata Aurora there's Borgo Dora where takes place the flea market as known as Balôn every saturday and the market of antiques Gran Balôn every second Sunday of the month. Little antiques and craftsmen shops, dehors café among cubblestone alleys sprinkle this ancient little district that everybody in Turin call Balôn par execellence because this is the place in which the first aerostatic fly attemps took place at the end of 1700, just 6 months after the ones of Montgolfier brothers. Precisely in honour of that, a wired air baloon, the HiFlyer, it's been installed here a couple of years ago. It can host up to 30 people and climbs up to 150 mt on a metal wire moved by an electric engine.
In the square in front of it there are the old arsenal buildings that have been turned nowadays into in a creative writing school while the trip hammer room, where incandescent iron was striken to produce weapons, is now a little square (Cortile del Maglio) with little craftmen shops, a Libaneese restaurant, a Cuban bar and still the black big iron hammer in the center.



From piazza Castello you can easily reach the Mole Antonelliana by foot too. In this charachteristic building, the Turin symbol, previously commissioned to architect Antonelli by the Jewish community to be their synagogue, is the Cinema Museum (Cinema in italy was born in Turin).

Always from Piazza Castello, at the end of via Po, there's the wide and airy piazza Vittorio Veneto (the biggest collonnaded square without monuments in Europe) that offers a charming scenario of the Turin hill with the Gran Madre in the fore and the monastery of Cappuccini friars above. Between piazza Vittorio and the Gran Madre there's the Po river and its well-known Murazzi del Po promenade (since a few years ago one of the nightlife haunts proliferating of nightspots and discos is about to have a new life). From Murazzi you can start a nice trip on the river on Valentino and Valentina, two boats on which you can have lunch, dinner or the so called in Italy aperitivo, coasting the Valentino park up to the neighbouring city of Moncalieri.

Typical Piedmont dishes are a very large range of appetizers, the Bagna cauda (a sauce made of anchoves and garlic put in a particular little bowl warmed up by a little candel eaten with fresh vegetables), the Gran Bollito alla Piemontese (many parts of boiled cow, chiken and pig meat served with sauces), the Fritto Misto alla Piemontese (breaded fried meat, entrails, vegetables and fruit), the Ravioli del Plin (so called because “plin” means pinch: the pasta foil is folded on the stuffing, pinched and then cutted with the specific wheel where tehy've been pinched).
You can taste all the mentioned dishes in the Tre Galline historic restaurant (via Gianfrancesco Bellezia 37).
Another historic restaurant is the Porto di Savona in Piazza Vittorio Veneto and next to it the trattoria Da Michele where you can eat an excellent chick-pea cake (thin olied flat bread salted and peppered) and the tipycal torinese pizza al tegamino (baked in a little round baking pan) as well as dishes as chicken or rabbit “alla cacciatora” (hunter way) for moderate prices. During spring, summer and a little of autumn they both have wide dehors from which you have a very charming scenario of the entire square and the hill.
In Borgo Dora I point out the old trattoria Valenza and Sapor Divino.
In via Giovanni Botero, the continuation of via Bellezia crossing via Garibaldi, you find the Argentinian Restaurant Volver of my friends Monica and Nicolàs that offers excellent imported Argentiniann angus. For a fast fried seafood a little restaurant opened recently in via Bellezia called Pippo Paranza.

For the particular italian “almost dinner” aperitivo (all you can eat self service buffet in which you pay just for your drink) you can find many of bars in piazza Emanuele Filiberto (at the end of via Bellezia) and via Sant'Agostino (next to it) where there's also a vintage clothing store, Magnifica Preda) with a bar inside.

The Turin public transport company GTT has turned into restaurants two trams where you can eat running around the city centre

Despite it's not near my apartments I can't omit to quote the railrackway that from Stazione Sassi climbs up on the Superga hill in vintage wagons up to the Cathedral from wish you can have a 360° astonishing panorama of Turin in the valley below and the majestic Apls mountain chain.

UNDER REQUEST, PARKING IN THE INNER COURT AVAILABLE FOR €15 PER DAY

CHECK-IN AFTER 23:30 IS POSSIBLE UNDER PAYMENT OF €40 EXTRA CHARGE