Royal Museums and Royal Palace of Turin: tickets and visiting

What the Royal Museums complex includes

The Musei Reali are not one museum but the whole group of buildings that grew around the Savoy court over three centuries, between Piazza Castello and the cathedral. You enter at Piazzetta Reale 1, behind the railings topped by statues of Castor and Pollux, and a single ticket takes you through very different spaces.

• Royal Palace: the first-floor state apartments, with throne rooms, frescoed galleries, furniture and porcelain.
• Chapel of the Holy Shroud: Guarino Guarini’s stepped dome, reopened after the long restoration that followed the fire of 1997.
• Royal Armoury and Coin Room: one of Europe’s richest collections of arms and armour, in the gallery frescoed by Claudio Francesco Beaumont.
• Galleria Sabauda: the Savoy picture gallery in the Manica Nuova wing, from Van Eyck to Van Dyck and from Mantegna to Veronese.
• Museum of Antiquities: prehistoric, Etruscan and Roman finds from Piedmont, including the remains of the Roman Theatre.
• Royal Gardens: seven hectares of green behind the palace, free to enter.

The Royal Library belongs to the complex too. It holds the famous red-chalk self-portrait attributed to Leonardo, which is fragile and shown only in dedicated exhibitions; the monumental reading room can be visited free of charge on some weekdays.

The route: what not to miss

The visit is long, so it helps to know in advance where to slow down. These are the places most visitors remember.

The Royal Palace apartments

You climb the Scissor Staircase (Scala delle Forbici), built by Filippo Juvarra in just two years for the wedding of Charles Emmanuel III: a flight that seems to hang in mid-air. On the first floor, the Throne Room, fitted out for King Charles Albert, and the Daniel Gallery, frescoed by Daniel Seiter with a ceiling crowded with allegorical figures, show a court that wanted to rival Paris and Vienna.

The Chapel of the Holy Shroud

From the palace you reach the chapel Guarini designed to house the relic. Its black marble dome, built from stacked arches that narrow towards the top, is one of the high points of European Baroque. After the fire of 1997 it stayed closed for more than twenty years; today it is part of the Musei Reali route.

Armoury, Galleria Sabauda and Antiquities

In the Armoury, knights in full armour on wooden horses face each other down the Beaumont Gallery as if at a tournament, and children love it. The Galleria Sabauda deserves an hour and a half on its own. The Museum of Antiquities, often skipped, is quieter and leads down to the Roman Theatre. There is more detail on our page about the Galleria Sabauda and Royal Armoury.

The Holy Shroud: what you can and cannot see

This is the most common misunderstanding, so it is worth being clear. The Holy Shroud is kept in the Cathedral of St John the Baptist, right next to the palace, in a case the public cannot see. It is only displayed during expositions, rare events announced by the diocese many months ahead.

In the cathedral, which is free, there is a large photographic replica of the cloth. The Musei Reali ticket instead covers Guarini’s Chapel of the Holy Shroud, built to hold it and linked to both the palace and the cathedral. If you want the history of the cloth and the scientific studies, the Shroud Museum in Via San Domenico has its own ticket. Read more on our Holy Shroud page.

Which ticket to choose

For most visitors the answer is simple: the standard ticket, which costs €15 according to the museum website, opens the whole complex. You can buy it at the ticket office or online on the official site. Under 18s go free, 18 to 25 year olds pay €2, and on the first Sunday of the month entry is free for everyone (expect crowds).

On Tiqets there are two guided options. The Royal Palace guided tour, from €49, suits people who want the state rooms brought to life; the skip-the-line entry with a guide, from €59, is useful on weekends and public holidays when the ticket queue can be long. In both cases check the language, the length and which spaces are included; you can usually carry on alone after the tour.

If your trip also includes the Egyptian Museum, the Mole or Palazzo Madama, look at the Torino+Piemonte Card, from €29.90, which includes entry to the Musei Reali. The full comparison is on our Turin tickets page.

Practical information

• Hours: Thursday to Tuesday, 9am to 7pm, last entry 6pm; closed on Wednesday. The Royal Gardens open from 8.30am to 7pm on the same days.
• Getting there: from Porta Nuova station it is about a 20-minute walk up Via Roma; GTT lines 4, 11 and 58 also stop nearby. The metro does not reach Piazza Castello.
• Accessibility: the main floor of the palace has a lift and wheelchairs can be borrowed at the ticket desk; a few areas, such as the Royal Kitchens, are not accessible. Visitors with disabilities and one companion enter free.
• Bags and photos: backpacks and umbrellas go to the cloakroom; photos are allowed without flash, tripods or selfie sticks. No eating or drinking in the rooms.
• With children: entry is free under 18 and the museum runs family routes. The Armoury and the gardens are the favourites; the rest of the route is long, so plan breaks.

Planning your day

Arrive at opening time: the rooms are quieter in the morning and the light in the Daniel Gallery is at its best. A sensible order is the apartments, the Chapel of the Holy Shroud and the Armoury, then the Galleria Sabauda and, if you still have energy, the Museum of Antiquities. Finish in the free Royal Gardens for a break outdoors.

The cathedral is a few steps away and is worth a stop even once you know the Shroud is not on show. In the afternoon, cross Piazza Castello to Palazzo Madama or walk along Via Po towards the Mole Antonelliana. The Egyptian Museum is better kept for another half-day: two big museums in one day tire even the keenest visitor. For more ideas see our page on things to do in Turin.