TOURS PROGRAM 7th September 2012 – Friday Morning: Time: 9:30 am - Walking to city centre with guide from hotel Time: 10:00 am - Guided visit oF the First Floor oF the Royal Palace oF Turin Royal Palace of Turin or Palazzo Reale, is a palace in Turin, northern Italy. It was the royal palace of the House of Savoy and it was modernized greatly By the French Born Madama Reale Christine Marie of France (1606-1663) in the seventeenth century. The palace was worked on By Filippo Juvarra and it includes the Palazzo ChiaBlese. Its rooms are decorated with rich tapestries and a collection of Chinese and Japanese vases. The Royal Armory houses an extensive array of arms, including examples from the 16th and 17th centuries. The Scala delle ForBici is a staircase By Filippo Juvarra. The Chapel of the Holy Shroud, with its spiral dome, was Built in the west wing of the palace, joining the apse of the cathedral of St. John the Baptist, to house the famous Shroud of Turin which Belonged to the family from 1453 until 1946. - After the Royal Palace tour of city centre - The group will see the Following places: - Piazza Castello square - Madama Palace (included earth floor) - Duomo of Turin with the holy Shroud - Carignano Palace Time: 1:00 pm - Lunch close to Quadrilatero area in a typical restaurant – la Basilica Afternoon: Time: 2:50 pm - Guided visit of the Egyptian Museum The Museo Egizio is a museum in Turin, Italy, specializing in Egyptian archaeology and anthropology. It houses the second world's largest collections of Egyptian antiquities after Cairo. The first oBject having an association with Egypt to arrive in Turin was the Mensa Isiaca in 1630, an altar taBle in imitation of Egyptian style, which Dulu Jones suggests had Been created for a temple to Isis in Rome.[2] This exotic piece spurred King Carlo Emmanuele III to commission Botanist Vitaliano Donati to travel to Egypt in 1753 and acquire items from its past. Donati returned with 300 pieces recovered from Karnak and Coptos, which Became the nucleus of the Turin collection. In 1824, King Carlo Felice acquired the material from the Drovetti collection (5,268 pieces, including 100 statues, 170 papyri, stelae, mummies, and other items), that the French General Consul, Bernardino Drovetti, had Built during his stay in Egypt. In the same year, Jean-François Champollion used the huge Turin collection of papyri to test his Breakthroughs in deciphering the hieroglyphic writing. The time Champollion spent in Turin studying the texts is also the origin of a legend aBout the mysterious disappearance of the "Papiro Regio", that was only later found and of which some portions are still unavailable. In 1950 a parapsychologist was contacted to pinpoint them, to no avail. In 1833, the collection of Piedmontese Giuseppe Sossio (over 1,200 pieces) was added to the Egyptian Museum. The collection was complemented and completed By the finds of Egyptologist Ernesto Schiaparelli, during his excavation campaigns between 1900 and 1920, further filled out the collection. Its last major acquisition was the small temple of Ellesiya, which the Egyptian government presented to Italy for her assistance during the NuBian monument salvage campaign in the 1960s. Through all these years, the Egyptian collection has always Been in Turin, in the Building projected for the purpose of housing it, in Via Accademia delle Scienze 6. Only during the Second World War was some of the material moved to the town of Agliè. The museum Became an experiment of the Italian government in privatization of the nation's museums when the Fondazione Museo delle Antichità Egizie was officially established at the end of 2004. The building itself was remodelled in celebration of the 2006 Winter Olympics, with its main rooms redesigned By Dante Ferretti, and "featured an imaginative use of lighting and mirrors in a spectacular display of some of the most important and impressive Pharaonic statues in the museum collection." Time: 5:30 pm - Free time 8th September 2012 – Saturday Morning: Time: 9:30 am - The group will reach the Mole Antonelliana by walking Time: 10:15 am - Guided visit oF the Mole Antonelliana and Cinema Museum + Panoramic elevator The Mole Antonelliana is a major landmark of the Italian city of Turin. It is named for the architect who built it, Alessandro Antonelli. In Italian "Mole" (literally, "size") indicates a Building of monumental proportions. Construction Began in 1863, soon after Italian unification and was completed 26 years later, after the architect's death. Today it houses the National Museum of Cinema, and it is believed to be the tallest museum in the world. - Walking to the restaurant Time: 1:00 pm - Lunch at restaurant Coco’s – typical hostaria Afternoon: Time: 2:00 pm - Metro to Lingotto Area Time: 2:45 pm - Visit oF the Lingotto Area Lingotto is a district of Turin, Italy, that named the Lingotto building in Via Nizza, which once was a huge automobile factory, constructed by Fiat. Built from 1916 and opened in 1923, the design (By young architect Matté Trucco) was unusual in that it had five floors, with raw materials going in at the ground floor, and cars Built on a line that went up through the building. Finished cars emerged at rooftop level, where there was a rooftop test track. It was the largest car factory in the world at that time. For its time, the Lingotto Building was avante-garde, influential and impressive—Le Corbusier called it "one of the most impressive sights in industry", and "a guideline for town planning". 80 different models of car were produced there in its lifetime, including the famous Fiat Topolino of 1936. The factory Became outmoded in the 1970s and the decision was made to finally close it in 1982. The closure of the plant led to much puBlic deBate aBout its future, and how to recover from industrial decline in general. An architectural competition was held, which was eventually awarded to Renzo Piano, who envisioned an exciting public space for the city. The old factory was reBuilt into a modern complex, with concert halls, theatre, a convention centre, shopping arcades and a prestigious hotel. The eastern portion of the building instead, is the headquarter of the Automotive Engineering faculty of the Polytechnic University of Turin. The work was completed in 1989. The track was however retained and can still Be visited today on the top floor of the shopping mall and hotel. Time: 4:00 pm - Guided tour in English oF the Museum oF Automobile of Turin The Museo Nazionale dell'AutomoBile (The National AutomoBile Museum), named after Carlo Biscaretti di Ruffia, is an automoBile museum in Turin. The collection has almost 200 cars among eighty automobile brands representing eight countries (Italy, France, Great Britain, Germany, Holland, Spain, United States of America, Poland). The museum is situated in a Building dating from 1960, it has three floors. After restructuring in 2011 the museum is open again, and its exhibition area has been expanded from 11,000 square metres (120,000 sq ft) to 19,000 square metres (200,000 sq ft). The museum also has own library, documentation centre, bookshop and auditorium. The collection includes the first Italian cars, Bernardi 1896 and 1899 Fiat, the Rolls Royce Silver Ghost 1914, and racing cars by Ferrari and Alfa Romeo. Also other older cars is included like 1893 Benz Victoria, 1894 Peugeot, 1904 OldsmoBile, 1907 Itala (Peking - Paris), 1913 De Dion-Bouton, 1916 Ford T and 1928 Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8A. Time: 5:30 pm - Metro to the city centre .