Italy Guide
Piemonte and Valle d'Aosta
Museo Nazionale dell'Automobile
Price: €7
The Museo Nazionale dell'AutomobileAddress: Corso Unità d'Italia 40 
www.museoauto.it ) is Italy's only motor museum. Even if you know nothing about cars, this has some appeal – you'll discover strange vehicles from motoring's formative days and others familiar from classic films, as the museum traces the development from early cars, handcrafted for a privileged minority, to the mass-produced family version. One of the favourite luxury models is the gleaming Isotta Fraschini driven by Gloria Swanson in the film Sunset Blvd., still with the initials of Norma Desmond, the character she played, on the side. The pride of the collection is the 1907 Itala, which won the Peking-to-Paris race in the same year; you can read of its adventures in Luigi Barzini's book Peking to Paris.