Le Nuove Prison Museum

About this place

In most prisons turned museum you stand behind glass looking at a tidied-up cell. There is no glass here and nothing has been tidied. Le Nuove is Turin's actual prison, opened in 1870 and taking inmates until 1986, with one last section still in use into the early 2000s, and you walk its corridors and step into its cells yourself. Among what is opened for you: the First German Wing, where the Nazi occupation held Italian partisans and Jewish detainees and interrogated them under torture, and the cells where a condemned man was kept while he waited for his sentence to be carried out. The association that runs the place, Nessun uomo è un'isola, calls it a museum of civil conscience, and the description is accurate — the telling is spare and respectful, with no attempt to turn suffering into a thrill. The practical side is the first thing you need to know. Entry is by guided tour only, with a booking made in advance; there is no ticket you buy at the door and then wander off with on your own. The tour runs roughly ninety minutes to two hours, usually starting at 3pm daily with an extra 5pm slot on Saturday and Sunday, times shift with the season, and places are few because each group is capped. The fee is eight euros per route, and the Abbonamento Musei card covers it. One point specifically for non-Italian speakers: the commentary is delivered in Italian and a tour in English is not something to count on, so ask what is available when you book rather than assuming — and whatever written material you are given does not replace what the guide says standing in front of the door in question. The air-raid shelter, eighteen metres beneath the building, is a separate route on a separate ticket and usually runs at weekends — do not assume it is part of the museum tour. Let us be blunt about the recommendation. This does not justify a trip to Turin on its own, and if you are coming from Milan or the lakes for a single day, the Egyptian Museum, Palazzo Madama or the climb up the Mole all have a stronger claim on your afternoon. But if you are staying three days or more and your interest runs to modern history rather than palaces, this is among the two most powerful hours available anywhere in the city. It is also genuinely hard going: the place is cold, bleak and entirely undecorated, unsuitable for children, unsuitable for anyone in a fragile frame of mind, and no one's idea of a light post-lunch activity. In winter wear a heavy coat — much of the building is unheated and the cold inside the stone bites harder than the cold outside. The location is west of the centre beside the law courts, about fifteen minutes on foot from Porta Susa station. The neighbourhood is administrative rather than touristic — a few bars serving the courts and little else — so plan on heading back into the centre afterwards; walking out of that building into an open square and a cup of coffee is less a luxury than a necessity. Book well before you travel and reconfirm the day before, as slots shift with the programme and with events.