Every design for Collegno

Collegno is known for its great Certosa, the charterhouse built in the seventeenth century on the orders of Maria Cristina of France and finished by Juvarra, which later became a hospital for mental illness until it closed in the last century. It is also home to the Museo del Grande Torino e della Leggenda Granata, devoted to the legend of the Grande Torino.

The town lies on an alluvial plain at the end of the Val di Susa, between Turin and Rivoli, with Monte Musinè rising behind it. The Dora Riparia runs through the last stretch of its course here, and the land along its banks forms the Parco Agronaturale della Dora, part woodland, part farmland cut by old irrigation channels, and a stopping place for migrating birds. It began as a Roman staging post on the road from Turin, a Lombard necropolis turned up during the works for the metro, and Lajos Kossuth, the exiled Hungarian leader, later lived here.

The Castello Provana, with its square medieval tower on a rise above the Dora, is the oldest part of that story still standing, and the landmark to carry if Collegno is where your day begins.