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In 1706 the French besieged Turin for four months as part of the War of Spanish Succession, which embroiled all major European powers and their colonies. The defending Savoyards had dug 15 km of counter-sapping tunnels, to prevent the French burrowing in. That meant the French could only attack ineffectively from a distance. Pietro Micca sacrificed himself in detonating a tunnel that they were breaking into; a few days later the siege was broken by arriving reinforcements. Nine km of preserved galleries can be visited.
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This church was built in the 1730s for a Carmelite convent.
GAM Torino
Huge permanent collection of 19th and 20th century art.
Museo Carceri Le Nuove
Spooky museum of prisons and punishments. Visit by guided tour; booking is recommended, and essential for the descent into the air raid shelter.
Museo della Sindone
The original Sindone or Turin Shroud is in safekeeping in the Cathedral and rarely displayed. This small museum displays a copy and studies the Shroud. It's a remarkable object whatever it is, a 4.4 x 1.1 m winding sheet charred by fire and appearing to bear the likeness of a man, matching the Gospel description of the crucifixion of Jesus. Multiple tests have produced contradictory results, or at least contradictory interpretations. It's only reliably known to have existed since 1390 when it was denounced as a forgery, and radio-carbon dating matches that. But no deliberate attempt to reproduce it has managed to capture all its qualities, especially the 3D effect of its photo negative, and neither natural nor artificial processes convincingly explain it. So just look and wonder.
Baroque bling palace, visit by guided tour. Its last private owner Carlo Tancredi Falletti di Barolo served Napoleon then worked tirelessly for relief of the poor; his palace then became an opera house.
Cappella dei Mercanti, Negozianti e Banchieri
A jewel of baroque architecture and sacred art built from 1680 by businessmen anxious to sanctify their dealings - they were, let's stress, "The Pious Congregation of Bankers, Shopkeepers and Merchants of Turin." One theme of the decor is the Magi, bearing the trade valuables without which the Christian church couldn't exist. The chapel was created within Chiesa dei Santi Martiri, a 16th-century Jesuit church. Its best-known artefact is the "calendario perpetuo" made by Giovanni Amedeo Plana in 1831. This predicts lunar phases, tides, days of the week and Christian holy days for 4000 years from Year Zero (1 BC in the Gregorian calendar); thereafter it's askew as it misses an extra leap-day tweak. It ranks among the world's earliest computers, though pipped by Babbage's "difference engine" of 1822.