Things to do in Turin

Landmark · Centro

The 167-metre brick spire that is the city's symbol, housing Italy's national cinema museum in a spiralling ramp around its void.

Local tip: The panoramic lift runs up the inside of the dome in a glass car with no visible support, which is worth the ticket by itself. Buy the combined museum and lift ticket; the lift-only queue is usually longer.

Culture · Centro, Via Accademia delle Scienze

The oldest museum of Egyptian antiquities in the world and, after Cairo, the most important collection anywhere.

Local tip: It is far larger than it looks from the street and needs three hours, not one. Book a timed slot online — walk-up waits are long at weekends — and go on a weekday morning if you can.

Food · North of Piazza Castello

Reputedly the largest open-air market in Europe, backing onto the Roman street grid that has become the city's best eating quarter.

Local tip: The market runs mornings and is at its best and cheapest in the last hour before it closes. The Balon flea market on Saturdays and the Gran Balon on the second Sunday of each month are separate events in the same streets.

Nature · Along the Po, south of the centre

The city's riverside park with a mock-medieval village, and the stone embankments below the bridges that are Turin's summer nightlife.

Local tip: The Borgo Medievale is a nineteenth-century reconstruction rather than a real village, and free to walk through. The Murazzi arches under the river wall come alive from May and are where the city drinks outdoors.

Landmark · South, Via Nizza

Fiat's 1923 factory with a test track on the roof, converted by Renzo Piano into a mall, a conference centre and a gallery.

Local tip: The rooftop track is open and free to walk, and the Pinacoteca Agnelli in the glass 'scrigno' above it holds a small, superb collection. Getting up there is the single most Turinese thing you can do in an afternoon.

Nature · Hill above the Po, east of the city

An eighteenth-century Savoy basilica on a 670-metre hill, reached by a rack railway running since 1884.

Local tip: Take tram 15 to Sassi, then the rack tramway up through the woods. On a clear winter day after rain the whole Alpine arc from Monviso to Monte Rosa is visible from the terrace — the best view of the Alps from anywhere in Italy that you can reach on a transit ticket.