The City is surrounded by a high, strong wall that no common scaling ladders can ascend; and "the sky over the city is crisscrossed with thousands of strands of tarn wire. Even in the daytime it can be hard to see. It is there, however." (*) The imponent Sun Gate is opened every day when dawn breaks and closed before the 16th Ahn.
The Avenue of Adminius is the main thoroughfare of Torcadino, it is busy and full of life during the day. To both sides of the Avenue are high cylinders and magnificent buildings, whose walls are "composed of the flat, narrow bricks common in southern Gorean architecture."
Among these cylinders, the Semnium -the Hall of the High Council of the City- stands out. "Low, broad steps lead to the entrance of the building and extend before it for the entire length of its portico." The original meaning of the word Semnium "is apparently 'Meeting Place', and its application to a building, or a hall for the meeting of councils, is, it seems, a later development." The words Samnium –the name of the city northwest of Torcadino- and Semnium are the same; Semnium is the pronunciation commonly used in the western coastal dialects.

"Within the entrance to the Semnium was a marble-floored, lofty hall. Passageways and stairways led variously from this broad vestibule. The walls were adorned with mosaics, scenes generally of civic life, prominent among them were scenes of public gatherings, conferences and processions. One depicted the laying of the first stone in Torcadino's walls, an act which presumably would have taken place more than seven hundred years ago, when, according to the legends, the first wall, only a dozen feet high, was built to encircle and protect a great, sprawling encampment at the joining of trade routes. Within the hall were several soldiers, and several officers, at tables, conducting various sorts of business. To one side, permanent fixtures, immovable and sturdy, their supports fixed in the floor, were several rows of long, narrow, marble benches. It was on these that clients and claimants, with their various causes, grievances and petitions, would wait until their turn came to be called for their appointments or hearings. It was here, too, that witnesses, and such, might wait, before being summoned to give testimony on various matters before the courts."
Mercenaries of Gor, pp. 141-42

Torcadino is a well-known enslaving centre; there are several Slaver Houses in the City which provide all types of slaves, superbly trained.

The Central Marketplace of the City is worth visiting. Due to the location of Torcadino, the City receives Merchants from all over Gor, so the Marketplace offers a wide variety of products; such as silks, satins, embroidered cloths; hides, skins, rugs and mats; jewelry and mirrors, gold and silver; cushions, perfumes; tools; leather goods; whips and chains; a variety of fruits and vegetables, spices, and several other goods. Some of these goods are brought to the City from distant places, others are manufactured or produced in Torcadino.

The City of Torcadino has another important feature: its two aqueducts, designed long ago by the best engineers of the City, and thanks to which we have enough water to live comfortably nowadays.

"The natural wells of Torcodino, originally sufficing for a small population, had, more than a century ago, proved inadequate to furnish sufficient water for an expanding city. Two aqueducts now brought fresh water to Torcodino from more than a hundred pasangs away, one from the Issus, a northwestwardly flowing tributary to the Vosk and the other from springs in the Hills of Eteocles, southwest of Corcyrus. The remote termini of both aqueducts themselves are usually patrolled and, of course, engineers and workmen attend regularly to their inspection and repair.
These aqueducts are marvelous constructions, actually, having a pitch of as little as a hort for every pasang."
Mercenaries of Gor, pp. 101-02