The city's classic shopping street is Via Roma, the heart and symbol of the city centre. Under its porticoes - that in all the city stretch for over forty kilometres along a route that is unique in Europe - shoppers can stroll past the beautifully, displayed windows of the city's most exclusive retail outlets, protecyted against the winter storms and the summer heat. Here, the most important names in fashion display every type of garment, leather goods and clothes accessories in an almost uninterrupted sequence that can stand comparison with the most prestigious shopping streets in the world. What also makes shopping in Turin such a unique pleasure is the possibility to take time out in one of the innumerable historic Cafès along the streets of the centre. These too are treasures no visitor should miss with their marble counters and antique furnishing, not to mention the extraordinary range of snacks and canapés they offer at cocktail time.

There is more shopping to be enjoyed in the streets adjacent to Via Roma where, besides high fashion boutiques, there are also exclusive shops selling elegant furniture and fabrics, as well as jewellers, antique shops and superlative craft emporia. One experience not to be missed is a detour to the Subalpina and San Federico Arcades, whre the superlative elegance of the architecture, that blends so harmoniously into the fabric of the city centre, is matched by the exquisite contents of the shops.

Via Garibaldi, the longest pedestrian street in the city, stretching from Piazza Castello to Piazza Statuto, is more popular and frequented by the city's youngsters, that have made it a regular meeting place. It is one long line of shops - selling everything from jeans to books, hi-fi eqipment to perfumes, and household goods to costume jewellery - and an endless sequence of bars and market stalls, all at distinctly competitive prices.

In the historical city centre, thathas been the subject of a major urban redevelopment programme during the last few years, there is an intricate tanle of narrow streets - Via Barbaroux, Via dei Mercanti, Via San Tommaso and Via Monte di Pietà, rich with a little old-fashioned shops selling haberdashery, wine, local gastronomic delicacies, cakes and costume jewellery. There are also old-style herbalist's shop and master bakers who sell their own handmade version of grissini, the traditional breadsticks the Turin people call "robatà",as well as "paste 'd melia", a mouth-watering local delicacy made of corn flour. There is also the alternative Turin, where it is possible to find a second-hand clothes shops, silvermiths and leather workshops selling their own creations, bookbinders, tailors and dress makers. It is an area where tradition goes hand in hand with a truly metropolitan sophistication.

But Turin shopping doesn't stop here. In the area of the University, near Piazza Carlo Emanuele II (known as Piazza Carlina), in the streets leading off Via della Rocca there are shops of a rather different character. This is shopping for the blasé and intellectual, an area that surprises also the most demanding and sophisticated of keen international shoppers. With the hypnotic attraction of continuing to stare at the richly displayed shop windows, you suddenly end up in Piazza Vittorio Veneto, the largest square in Europe, where all the buildings were designed in the same architectural style. Here, one shopping expedition ends only to begin another as the square eads you across the River Po to an area of attractive shops and handicraft workshops of high quality, in the small streets at the base of the hill overlooking Turin.