Egyptian Museum of Turin: tickets, guided tours and how to plan your visit

What you actually see at the Egyptian Museum of Turin

The Museo Egizio is the oldest museum in the world devoted to Egyptian culture: it dates from 1824, when King Carlo Felice bought the collection of the French consul Bernardino Drovetti, and it has occupied the Palace of the Academy of Sciences at Via Accademia delle Scienze 6, a few steps from Piazza Carignano, ever since. The route runs across four floors and is walked from the top down in chronological order, from the Predynastic period to Roman and Coptic Egypt.

Three stops are the ones nobody skips. The tomb of Kha and Merit, found intact at Deir el-Medina in 1906 by Ernesto Schiaparelli, with the complete furnishings of a craftsman's household: furniture, food, clothing, cosmetics. The rock-cut Temple of Ellesiya, given by Egypt to Italy for its help in saving the Nubian monuments. And the Gallery of the Kings, the hall of monumental statues (Ramesses II, the black-granite Sekhmets) staged by the film designer Dante Ferretti: it is the photo everyone takes home and the room where a guide's explanation earns its price.

If you have a specific interest, keep time for the papyrus rooms. They hold the Turin King List, the list of pharaohs on which Egyptian chronology still rests, and the map of the Eastern Desert mines, considered the oldest surviving topographical map. These are small, unshowy objects, which is exactly why an audio guide or a live guide changes the visit.

Egyptian Museum Turin tickets: prices and options compared

A full adult ticket to the Egyptian Museum sits in the €18–22* band, with a reduced fare of a few euros* for ages 6–14 and free entry under 6; the exact tariff changes from time to time, so check museoegizio.it before you travel. Entry is always by timed slot, whether you buy on the official site or through Tiqets, which resells the same slots with the option to pay in other currencies and cancel under its own terms.

Above the basic ticket there are three formats. The small-group skip-the-line guided tour on GetYourGuide (€68–75*, 4.8★ from over 1,500 reviews) is the one we recommend for a first visit: about two hours, ticket included, groups kept small. The skip-the-line visit with guide sold by Tiqets starts at €49–55* (4.8★, 229 reviews) and is the pick when budget is the main variable. The self-guided tour with digital audio guide on GetYourGuide (€30–35*) sits in between: entry plus commentary on your phone, at your own pace.

If you are not sleeping in Turin there are the combinations: the half day from Milan with train and guide (€100–120*, about 6 hours), the museum paired with a guided walk of the centre and, on Headout, the Egyptian Museum plus Royal Palace bundle. The price bands we quote are observed on partner catalogues and checked regularly; the checkout price always prevails.

Egyptian Museum guided tour: when it is worth paying for

A guide is worth more at the Egyptian Museum than at almost any other museum in Turin, for a simple reason: the collection is mostly small objects, papyri, amulets, stelae, and without someone to read them for you the visit turns into a dash to the statues and an exit after an hour. The museum also runs its own official guided visits of about 60 minutes, listed at around €70* on top of the entry ticket: verify on museoegizio.it, because availability, price and languages change with the season.

On the platforms the choice is between GetYourGuide's small-group skip-the-line tour, Tiqets' cheaper guided visit and the monolingual skip-the-line Mystery Tour, also on GetYourGuide, which scores 5.0★ from 55 reviews: a puzzle-driven narrative route designed for families with older children or for anyone who has already seen the museum once. In every case check the guide's language (Italian and English are the most common, French and Spanish less so) and the meeting point, which is usually outside the entrance on Via Accademia delle Scienze.

If you would rather go it alone, take the audio guide: the museum offers a digital version to download to your own phone, and GetYourGuide sells an entry plus audio guide package. Bring headphones. For a guide just for your family or a specialist interest, see our private tours page.

Booking, opening hours and practical tips

Booking ahead is the rule, not the exception: the Egyptian Museum is among the most visited museums in Italy, and on weekends, holiday bridges and school holidays the morning slots sell out days in advance. On weekdays between October and May, Tuesday to Friday mornings, the museum fills with school groups: if you can, aim for the first entry of the day or the last two hours of the afternoon, when the rooms empty out.

On Mondays the museum keeps reduced hours, mornings only, while Tuesday to Sunday it stays open until late afternoon; exact hours and exceptional closures are on the official site. Backpacks and large bags go in the cloakroom, photography without flash is allowed, and the building has lifts to every floor. From Porta Nuova station it is about ten minutes on foot along Via Roma; from Porta Susa take the tram or walk twenty minutes.

Cancellation depends on the format: guided tours on GetYourGuide and Tiqets normally allow free cancellation up to 24 hours before, timed tickets from the museum generally do not. That is why it makes sense to fix your Egyptian Museum date only once the rest of the itinerary is settled; our one-day itinerary page shows how to fit it around the centre.

Egyptian Museum Turin with kids and families

The Egyptian Museum works better with children than most people expect, provided you choose the rooms. Entry is free under 6 and a reduced fare of a few euros* applies from 6 to 14, so the cost for a family stays modest; pushchairs are allowed and lifts connect every floor. With small children skip the papyrus rooms and go straight to the tomb of Kha and Merit, where there are loaves, baskets and sandals more than three thousand years old, then on to the animal mummies and the Gallery of the Kings.

For children from about eight, the puzzle-based Mystery Tour on GetYourGuide is the format that holds attention for two hours. The museum also runs family activities and visits at weekends on a changing calendar: dates are on the official site and cannot always be booked through the platforms. Plan on two hours at most and a break: the cafés on Piazza Carignano and Via Roma are a minute from the exit.

Egyptian Museum, Royal Palace and the centre: how to combine the day

The museum's position makes it easy to pair with other sights without transport. Piazza Castello, with the Royal Palace and Palazzo Madama, is a five-minute walk; the Mole Antonelliana with the Museum of Cinema is ten. A classic day is the Egyptian Museum at the first morning slot, lunch under the arcades of Via Po and the Royal Palace in the early afternoon: Headout also sells the two tickets as one bundle, but check that the slot times are compatible.

If you have bought the Torino+Piemonte Card on Tiqets, Egyptian Museum entry should be included: check the current museum list on our tickets and passes page and remember that you still need to reserve a timed slot with the card. Day-trippers from Milan on the Frecciarossa (about an hour to Porta Susa) will find the tours that include train and guide on our from Milan page.

When to skip it: if you saw the Egyptian Museum in Cairo or the British Museum in the last year and have less than two days in Turin, you may prefer Venaria or a food tour. For everyone else it is the first thing to book in the city.

How we choose the platforms and the prices

For guided tours we start from GetYourGuide, because it has the widest Egyptian Museum catalogue and the most robust review counts; Tiqets is our first choice for timed tickets and for the Torino+Piemonte Card; Headout is the fallback when the other two are sold out, or for the Royal Palace bundle. The prices on this page are bands observed on partner catalogues and checked regularly: the checkout price, in euros, is the one that counts before you confirm.

We are not the museum's official site and we do not sell tickets: the booking buttons go to the partners, who pay us a commission at no extra cost to you. For official tariffs, opening hours and the visits organised by the museum itself, museoegizio.it remains the reference; for the rest of the city's museums start from tickets and passes.