10 things you didn’t know about Turin
Monday, 23rd March 2009

Although Italy is full of fabulous cities, it tends to be the same tourist hotspots that people opt to visit. Turin offers an equally as entertaining, yet less expensive alternative to Rome, Florence and Venice - hopefully these facts will inspire you to give it a whirl...
1. Turin is the fourth largest city in Italy, the captial of the Piedmont region, and a major business and culture centre. The city itself is home to nearly a million people, while its metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million.
2. The city grew from a Roman military camp called Castra Taurinorum which was established in AD 28. After the Roman Empire collapsed, the city was taken over by Lombards, then Franks and then Savoyards. The name Turin is Piedmontese. In Italian it’s Torino.
3. As home to headquarters of Fiat, Lancia and Alfa Romeo, Turin is known as “the Automobile Capital of Italy.
4. Solid chocolate was invented in Turin at the end of the 18th century by a Mr Doret. Before then chocolate was only available in liquid form as drinking chocolate. Every year at the end of February there is a two-week chocolate festival known as CioccolaTÒ – a great time for chocoholics to visit the city.
5. Turin is home to two famous football teams, Torino F.C. and Juventus F.C., which is Italy’s most successful team.
6. Turin became the first capital of the unified Kingdom of Italy in 1861. Then Florence took over as the capital between 1864 and 1871, since when Rome has been the capital.
7. Turin has a wonderful mixture of architecture including particularly Baroque and Art Nouveau, and some more modern buildings, especially since the Winter Olympic Games were hosted by the city in 2006.
8. Four large rivers flow through Turin – the Po, it’s tributary, the Dora Riparia, the Stura di Lanzo and the Sangone.
9. Turin enjoys a continental climate with mild to hot summers and cold, dry winters. It rains mainly in spring and autumn, and there are quite a few big thunderstorms during the summer.
10. The Mole Antonelliana is a major landmark and the symbol of Turin. It’s is named after its architect, Alessandro Antonelli, and it was originally built as a Jewish synagogue starting in 1893 and finishing in 1889. It is now houses the Museo Nazionale del Cinema (National Museum of Cinema), which is possibly the tallest museum in the world at 167 meters (548 feet). It was also the highest brick building in the world at the time of it’s completion, and still is the tallest building in Turin.
More about Italian courses in Turin
Tags: italian, culture, festival, italy, course, turin
Posted by Simon Ager under Experience Cultures,
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