Venaria Reale and Sacra di San Michele: tickets, tours from Turin and tips

The ticket covering the palace and the gardens is roughly €20–25*, the gardens alone €5–8*; children under 6 enter free and ages 6–21 pay a reduced fare, but bands shift with temporary exhibitions, so check the official site before you go. Guided visits with entry included start at €79* on Tiqets, day tours with transport from Turin at €70* on GetYourGuide. The Torino+Piemonte Card includes palace entry.

Yes, if you have an extra hour and it is not raining: the gardens cover about 60 hectares rebuilt from nothing after a century of neglect, with the Grand Parterre, the Potager Royal of orchards and vegetable beds, Giuseppe Penone's Garden of Fluid Sculptures and a little train for anyone who walks less. In midwinter the trees are bare and some areas close; from April to October the gardens are the best part of the visit. Palace + gardens is €20–25*, gardens alone €5–8*.

Three options. GTT bus 11 leaves from the Porta Susa area and stops in front of the palace after 40–50 minutes on a standard city ticket. The Turin–Ceres train (line SFM A) reaches Venaria station in about twenty minutes, then it is a 10–15 minute walk through the old town; check which Turin station it currently leaves from. The Venaria Express is a tourist shuttle from the centre that runs only on certain days and seasons. By car it is 20–30 minutes with paid parking next to the palace.

Allow two hours for the interior route with the Galleria Grande, the Chapel of St Hubert and the Juvarra stables; with the gardens you reach four hours, a full half day once you count transport. Temporary exhibitions in the Sale delle Arti add an hour. An organised tour with the Sacra di San Michele lasts 8–9 hours and takes the whole day: if you only have two days in Turin, the palace alone in the morning and the Egyptian Museum in the afternoon is more realistic.

It is if you have no car and want to see the abbey: the train from Turin gets you to Sant'Ambrogio, but from there a steep mule track climbs for about an hour, and the shuttle from the car park only runs in high season. The GetYourGuide tour from €70* solves transport and timing and puts two sites 40 km apart into one day. If you have a car, or only care about the palace, going by bus 11 with a €20–25* ticket costs less than half.

Yes. The Torino+Piemonte Card, from €29* for one day up to the 2, 3 and 5-day versions, includes entry to the palace and gardens; Rivoli Castle and the Sacra di San Michele usually appear on the list too, but venues change and need checking. The Card does not cover bus 11 or the Venaria Express unless you buy the transport variant. It pays off only if you also visit the Royal Museums and the Egyptian Museum on those days; for Venaria alone the single ticket is cheaper.

The weekly closing day is Monday, apart from some public holidays and special openings; on Saturdays and Sundays hours are longer and last entry is normally an hour before closing. The gardens follow their own calendar and may close early in winter. Temporary exhibitions, the fountain shows in the Court of Honour and summer evening openings should be checked on the official site before you book a fixed-date tour.

Yes: the interior route has lifts and ramps, a pushchair goes everywhere except a few rooms with raised platforms, and the gardens with the little train, the lawns of the Grand Parterre and the Potager Royal are the place to let children run. Under-6s do not pay. The Sacra di San Michele is not pushchair territory: you climb the Stairway of the Dead on foot and the path from Sant'Ambrogio is steep. With small children choose palace + gardens, or palace + Rivoli.