Turin with kids: top 5 family-friendly activities
What are the best things to do in Turin with kids? Looking for things to do with kids in Turin? This article lists 5 top activities for a memorable family trip.
Turin is a wonderful city, perfect for a weekend visit, but it also lends itself to longer stays. We chose it for a weekend ourselves, and we ended up extending our trip to explore this Italian gem with our daughters.
It was a beautiful journey because Turin has the ability to wrap you in a warm embrace, making you feel at home with its arcades and wide streets. At the same time, it can surprise you with the magnificence of its squares, the variety of its restaurants, and countless little shops that seem to lead you towards the city's most spectacular spots. Turin is perfect for walking, for exploring its galleries, porticoes, pedestrian streets, and grand squares. It's elegant and resolute, sweet and gentle, imposing yet accessible to the careful eye of those who want to discover it with the respect due to its history and the architectural beauty it shows at every turn.
I had the chance to experience it again with my daughters, and I've decided to share with you five unmissable things to do in Turin with kids that will not only please the children but also the adults, because they know how to amaze and intrigue the whole family. For a complete two-day plan, take a look at our guide for a family weekend itinerary.
What to do in Turin with kids: top 5 family-friendly activities
Egyptian Museum
You simply have to start with the Egyptian Museum, a museum that the entire world envies us for the quantity of artifacts, the quality, and the perfect exhibition it boasts. It’s a true journey through history, unfolding across four floors, 12,000 square meters, and spanning 4,000 years of history, art, and archaeology. It's a cornerstone for the history of Egypt, but not just that: it also holds Roman, pre-Roman, and prehistoric artifacts, along with a natural history section. Through a path that winds its way through the floors and then leads to a truly breathtaking hall, the Egyptian Museum is undoubtedly an essential stop in the city, as it is the world's oldest museum (founded in 1824) dedicated entirely to Egyptian culture. Between 1903 and 1937, archaeological excavations in Egypt led by Ernesto Schiaparelli and later by Giulio Farina brought approximately 30,000 artifacts to Turin. The Museum currently holds a collection of about 40,000 artifacts, of which 3,300 objects are displayed in the museum halls and about 12,000 in the galleries of Material Culture.
Stepping back in time to the land of pharaohs and pyramids. Every corner of the Egyptian Museum tells a story that's waiting to be discovered.
The Automobile Museum
If I say Turin, the mind immediately flies to the city's elegance, regal architecture, but also to the automobile because this city has always been deeply connected to the automotive world, and a must-see if you are in Turin is definitely the Automobile Museum. This is a unique collection of cars, enhanced by the spectacular scenic contextualization created by Francois Confino: the MAUTO is a fascinating journey through history that tells how the automobile has influenced fashions, customs, scientific research and technological achievements in a constant innovative drive. Definitely not to be missed.
National Cinema Museum
In the wonderful and unique setting of the Mole Antonelliana is one of the most exciting exhibitions of cinema. Inside, you can discover firsthand the secrets hidden behind the camera and the stages leading up to the screening of a film, in an interactive and interesting itinerary that starts from the shadow theater and moves on to the most spectacular special effects of our time and virtual reality. Also not to be missed is the panoramic elevator inaugurated in 1961, which leads to the top of the Mole Antonelliana, the architectural symbol of the city of Turin, designed by architect Alessandro Antonelli in 1863.
Stepping into a different world! From silent films to modern blockbusters, this museum is a fascinating adventure for all ages.
Valentino Park
The Valentino Park is undoubtedly the most famous park in Turin and is located along the banks of the Po River, situated in the San Salvario district close to Turin's historic center, just a stone's throw from us! It is a city park with an incredible size of 421,000 m². In the 2014 TripAdvisor ranking it is the most popular Italian park among tourists, and this note is not surprising because the Valentino Park, besides being an incredible green lung in the city, has inside it very important artistic works such as the Fountain of the Twelve Months, the Monument to the Artilleryman, the statue of Massimo d'Azeglio and other important busts and statues. Not only is it a very interesting space architecturally and scenically, but the Valentino Park is also the protagonist of walks, outdoor moments and games: perfect if you have children.
The Planetarium
Those who love the stars, raise your hands! And here I can already see them raising their hands because the celestial vault, the galaxy and everything infinite we find above us has always intrigued and thrilled young and old alike. An unmissable stop in Turin, the Planetarium has the ability to catapult us into the sky through its high-tech projection room, which manages to give its guests an immersive experience with extraordinary three-dimensional effects. Then, within the same space, we find the Attilio Ferrari Museum of Astronomy and Space: a modern Science Center where one can experience scientific content and delve into astronomical topics: the perfect place to get even younger children excited about what we find beyond the Earth.
WRITTEN BY: Laura Renieri, TheOldNow.it