The ancient capital of Savoy — where elephants parade on a fountain commissioned by a former ambassador to Egypt, the Turin Shroud was kept for 300 years before moving to Italy, Jean-Jacques Rousseau found his intellectual awakening in the house of a noblewoman, and the Alps rise immediately above the city in three directions
Chambéry (60,000; metro 210,000) is the historical capital of the Duchy of Savoy (which governed parts of modern France, Italy, and Switzerland for five centuries) — a gracious Alpine city of arcaded streets, historic fountains, and a château that served as the ducal seat before Turin took over in 1563. The Fontaine des Éléphants (1838), with four elephants at its base commissioned to honour a local general's time in Egypt, is the city's emblem. Chambéry was the home of the Holy Shroud of Turin (1578–1532 before the move to Turin) and later of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1728–1731), who spent form…
Chambéry was acquired by the House of Savoy in 1232 and became the capital of the Duchy of Savoy — a state that at its maximum extent controlled the western Alpine crossroads between France, Italy, and the Swiss Confederation and played a crucial role in Italian unification (Cavour, the architect of Italian unification, was a Piedmontese nobleman from the Savoy orbit). The Sainte-Chapelle of Chambéry Château held the Holy Shroud (now the Turin Shroud) from 1502 to 1578 — a fire in 1532 scorched its folded corners (the burn marks are still visible on the linen). Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–177…