CT 200h TOURS TURIN

Italy is 150 this year and there's no better place to be than Turin, the country's artistic and progressive first capital. Tony Middlehurst reports…

One of the best pieces of advice my father ever gave me was ‘look up’. Mind you, he had little experience of European cities, many of which are plagued by pigeons.

Happily, the northern Italian city of Turin is different. A fierce sense of civic pride has kept it pigeon-free, so looking up is not only a safe option, it’s also a deeply rewarding one.

The city’s intense blend of baroque and bang up to date has made it the obvious choice to head up Esperienza Italia 150, a national celebration of Italy’s 150 years as a unified state and of the unique confection of romance, art and passion that still characterises Italian life.

LA VENARIA

Our first stop is not revolutionary, but resolutely classical.

The huge Savoy reggia (palace) of La Venaria Reale was built as a hunting lodge in the pre-republic days when labour and materials were cheap, and artisanry the rule rather than the exception.

After a monumental 10-year rebuild, La Venaria is now a World Heritage site offering high art in a very natural setting. Our guide, Dottore Tomaso Ricardi di Netro, enthuses about this summer’s La Bella Italia exhibition and looks forward to the two-month Leonardo da Vinci exhibition they will be hosting from 18 November, which showcases 30 of his works including a self-portrait in red chalk, preserved here in Turin. ‘Everyone knows Leonardo as an architect and engineer,' says Dr di Netro, 'but he was also an artist and an artisan. He worked with his heart as well as his brain.’

In the high-ceilinged restoration centre and laboratory in La Venaria’s Great Hall, Daniela Russo focuses on the revivification of the reggia’s priceless stuccoes, canvases and panels. A glimpse through Daniela’s magnifying glasses at the ancient fresco on the treatment table shows why these projects are measured in years rather than days.

You could easily imagine a detail specialist like Daniela behind the wheel of a Lexus. It's a great vantage point for the appreciation of another art form: Turin driving. The city’s roads are bumpy, bafflingly marked and scarred by tramlines, and the traffic light system seems to be still phasing as Michael Caine set it up to do in The Italian Job. Stops are frequent and long, so the locals like to make up for lost time between red lights.

Adopting an ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ approach is certainly the safest way to drive here. The thrust of the hybrid power unit in the CT 200h, the tautness of the car's chassis and the responsiveness of its transmission in Sport mode make this Lexus a wieldy and effective tool that commands respect from the battered superminis battling for Turin road space. Better yet, with up to 4.1l/100km and combined emissions of just 94g/km there’s no environmental guilt for the CT 200h driver to assuage at the end of a gritty day’s jousting.

METROPOLITAN CRAFTSMEN

Piergiorgio Robino is the ebullient chief of the Turin design studio Nucleo. Three of his visionary pieces in paper and resin are on display in the Il futuro nelle mani (‘future in the hands’) exhibition that’s part of a larger show (Making Italians) at the Officine Grandi Riparazioni (OGR), a monolithic locomotive repair yard that’s been converted into a collection of exhibition spaces and piazzas. At the Café San Carlo, Robino introduces us to the entirely admirable 18th-century eating and drinking tradition known as ‘l’aperitivo’ while talking animatedly on the topic of tomorrow’s artisans and the recession-driven rebirth of Torinese handcrafting skills.

‘Torino has a history of metropolitan craftsmen,’ he says. ‘Recently though, we had lost the idea of artisanry. Quality had been replaced by economics. We wanted clean hands, with other people making things, not us.

‘The economic crisis has brought something new. Now we see that it’s okay to have dirty hands, to reinvent yourself. And technology can help the artisan. Before, the computer made everybody equal; now we are at the second stage where we understand that the computer is just a part of the process. It’s a tool, like the hammer, saw or knife. But sometimes you need to switch it off and use your brain.’

Luisa Perlo, scientific committee member of the OGR exhibition, tells us how this Il futuro nelle mani exhibition takes its inspiration from 20th-century Turin and from the idea of handicraft as a new perspective for the future. ‘Metropolitan artisans are an evolution of the traditional craftsmen, born from the idea of working with recycled materials,’ she says. ‘There’s a mechanical aesthetic here that reflects on the idea of labour, and on working with hands to do a job well.’

JOURNEY TO AOSTA

Time to escape the city: we've heard about a remarkable artisan working in Aosta, nestling at the base of the Italian Alps just one hour north of Turin. It’s an all-motorway trip to this Roman Empire town, but man’s intrusion hasn’t compromised Aosta valley’s scenic grandeur. Being a Lexus, the CT 200h ticks the all the boxes when it comes to long-distance comfort and refinement as we glide silently into Aosta.

From a tiny shop in the main street, Anna-Maria Malavolti has been creating and selling Minel bags for more than a quarter of a century. Some are Alpine rucksacks in the classic Lavoie military style; others are simple shopping bags. All are utterly functional and exquisitely fashioned from the finest Milan cowhide or local wool, using an Adler sewing machine that’s 40 years old … and methods that are rather older than that. At around €150, a Minel bag is a smart investment for life. There is no Minel website: interested buyers must write to Malavolti or visit in person. It’s worth a substantial detour.

PAST MIDNIGHT

I’m reminded of her work as I glimpse at the car's dash on the way back to Turin. I honestly can’t recall a better-assembled interior than this one. There’s a high-class ‘premium’ presence about the CT 200h that’s unique in this segment and that clearly appeals to the status-conscious Turinese. It’s not difficult to catch them looking covetously at our car: Italians are very open in their displays of admiration or curiosity. Our Lexus piques both emotions. Our last evening shot, from the cleverly lit 16th-century Monte dei Cappuccini monastery overlooking the city, comes at the end of three long but richly rewarding days. Famished and mentally pooped, we agree to take a chance on the first restaurant we see on the way back to our hotel. Again, it would be a risky gambit in many European cities, but ‘going with the flow’ has already served us well in Turin.

Sure enough, though it’s well past midnight, we soon find ourselves nibbling bread and antipasti in a pizza joint buzzing with locals. A waiter takes our order on what looks like a regular notepad. In our slightly fuddled state we don’t quite understand why he’s pointing the pad towards the wall until, five minutes later, we’re tucking into delicious pizzas that he’d wirelessly ordered through to the chef. It’s another example of modern technology seamlessly fitting into a traditional environment, like fresh water pumped into an ancient Roman stone fountain, digital art in the OGR and the CT 200h in Turin.

After three days here we’ve become accustomed to the ability of both city and car to deliver memorable human experiences. The anticipation of opening a door and stepping into something that you know will be good was something we savoured many times during our trip. And I'm sure we weren't the first Lexus people to feel that way in Turin.

Experience for yourself the CT 200h’s perfect balance between technology and luxury, and book a test drive here.

PHOTOGRAPHY: TOM SALT