Turin

Italy's first capital

Piazza San Carlo, the Egyptian Museum and the Mole Antonelliana.

Turin was Italy's first capital and for centuries the city of the House of Savoy: you see it in the boulevards, in the arcades — kilometres of them, so you can cross the centre under cover — and in the royal residences, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It has the Museo Egizio, the oldest museum in the world devoted entirely to ancient Egypt, and the Mole Antonelliana, home to the National Cinema Museum. From Malpensa it is just over an hour and a half by motorway, without going through Milan.