Palazzo Reale and Royal Armoury

The Palazzo Reale, Turin’s Buckingham Palace, is the main focus of the piazza Castello and the architectural ledger par excellence of the city’s royal history. The palace occupies half the northern side of the piazza and is linked by interconnecting corridors and passages to the former royal state buildings to the right and to the cathedral and chapel to the left. There is an undoubtable touch of Paris about the grand entrance flanked by the two equestian statues of Castor and Pollux but the façade, with its squat towers at either end, is more reminiscent of a grand Italian country villa. Recently repainted and restored to its Savoy light blue-grey, the 107-m façade by Amedeo di Castellemonte is in fact the only original piece of the palace complex left, the rest being influenced and changed by subsequent centuries and architects.