La Mandria Park and Castle

About this place

When Victor Emmanuel II, first king of a united Italy, wanted somewhere to hunt out of the court's sight, he did not simply buy an estate. He walled it: some thirty kilometres of brick enclosing around three thousand hectares of woodland and meadow. The wall still stands, and what it encloses is still Italy's largest walled historic park and one of the biggest in Europe. Deer move through it freely, so do wild boar, and thirty kilometres of surfaced avenues are open to walkers and cyclists only. No private cars, anywhere. At its heart sits the Borgo Castello, closer to a very large country house than to a palace. This is where the king installed Rosa Vercellana, the commoner Italians knew as la Bela Rosin, and whom he married morganatically — a marriage that gave her no crown and her children no claim to one. The twenty or so rooms open to visitors keep the original furnishings commissioned for the king in the 1860s; they are domestic and intimate rather than grand, and you walk them at your own pace in about forty-five minutes, with a guided tour available as a small paid extra on limited days. The ticket is entirely separate, 10 euros for an adult, closed Mondays except public holidays, and booking ahead is strongly advised. La Mandria and the Reggia di Venaria are near neighbours but two distinct visits on two distinct tickets. If you want both in a day, the combined ticket at around 22 euros covers the Reggia, its gardens and the castle here; Torino+Piemonte Card holders get both included. The park itself is free with no booking at all — gates open from 8am and close somewhere between 5pm and 8pm depending on the season. The best entrance is Ponte Verde, with a free gravel car park outside it, reached by the Venaria Express bus from Piazza Vittorio Veneto in Turin, which runs Tuesday to Sunday and ends at the Borgo Castello inside the park; it is about fifteen kilometres north-west of the city. Bikes can be hired all year from three points by the entrances, and the avenues are flat enough for pushchairs and for children still wobbly on two wheels. The honest verdict: the royal apartments are not reason enough for a full day out if you have already done the Royal Palace in Turin and the Reggia — treat them as a small addition, and skip them outright if time is tight. The park is a different proposition. With children, or on a clear spring or autumn morning, it is the finest thing you can do near Turin without buying a ticket at all. Bring your own food, because the refreshment points inside the wall are few and far apart, and do not count on halal food here; keep those plans for Turin itself.