For foodies
Where to eat well in Piedmont
32 towns
Towns holding at least one place a guide put its name to. The ones several guides agree on come first.
Alba
Province: Cuneo · 172 m
The Langhe capital at 172 meters on the Tanaro, world reference for white truffle and Nebbiolo, headquarters of Ferrero.
Monforte d'Alba
Province: Cuneo · 480 m
A Barolo cru village at 480 meters where the Cathars were burned in 1028 and where the summer jazz festival fills the old piazza.
La Morra
Province: Cuneo · 513 m
The hilltop above the Barolo zone, more Nebbiolo acreage than any other commune.
Bra
Province: Cuneo · 290 m
A Roero town at 290 meters where the world's first gastronomic university now teaches food systems.
Serralunga d'Alba
Province: Cuneo · 414 m
A 527-inhabitant Barolo cru village at 414 meters on a Langhe ridge, crowned by a 14th-century French-style donjon castle of the Falletti.
Cherasco
Province: Cuneo · 288 m
A walled grid-plan town on the river terrace where the Stura di Demonte meets the Tanaro, on the western edge of the Langhe.
Orta San Giulio
Province: Novara · 294 m
A promontory facing an islet basilica, with a UNESCO complex of Francis-of-Assisi chapels on the hill above.
Stresa
Province: Verbano-Cusio-Ossola · 200 m
A Lake Maggiore resort town at 200 meters, facing the Borromean Islands and running the Settimane Musicali since 1962.
Biella
Province: Biella · 417 m
A wool city at 417 meters in the Alpine foothills, where the medieval Piazzo sits above the modern Piano, connected by a funicular since 1885.
Arona
Province: Novara · 212 m
A town at the southern tip of a lake, watched over by a colossus finished in 1698.
Casale Monferrato
Province: Alessandria · 116 m
The historic capital of the Marchesato del Monferrato at 116 meters on the Po, where the Paleologi castle and the Baroque synagogue still stand.
Barolo
Province: Cuneo · 301 m
A Langhe borgo at 301 meters whose Castello Falletti gave its name to the wine the Marchesi turned dry in the 1830s with Cavour's help.
Canelli
Province: Asti · 157 m
The Asti Spumante town at 157 meters in the Belbo valley, where 20 kilometers of underground tuff cellars hold millions of bottles at constant temperature.
Domodossola
Province: Verbano-Cusio-Ossola · 272 m
The Ossola capital at 272 meters at the foot of the Simplon Pass.
Guarene
Province: Cuneo · 360 m
A Roero hilltop village at 360 meters above the Tanaro, whose Roero family baroque castle is now a luxury hotel and contemporary art destination.
Castiglione Falletto
Province: Cuneo · 350 m
A Barolo hilltop commune in the Langhe, ringed by vineyards on both sides of its ridge.
Gattinara
Province: Vercelli · 265 m
The Alto Piemonte Nebbiolo town on volcanic soil between the Sesia and Monte Rosa, DOCG since 1990, with a tenth-century watchtower above the vines.
Gavi
Province: Alessandria · 233 m
The Cortese di Gavi town below a Genoese star fortress, where Piemonte white wine was first recorded as Ligurian court tribute in 972.
Limone Piemonte
Province: Cuneo · 1,000 m
A ski village at 1,000 meters in the Vermenagna valley, the southern end of the Alps where the Tenda tunnel drops toward the Côte d'Azur.
Nizza Monferrato
Province: Asti · 267 m
The capital of Barbera at 267 meters in the upper Monferrato, founded 1225.
Santo Stefano Belbo
Province: Cuneo · 175 m
A Belbo valley village at 175 meters between the Langhe and Asti hills, birthplace of Cesare Pavese and the largest producer of Moscato d'Asti.
Venaria Reale
Province: Torino · 269 m
A Savoy town on the edge of Torino, built around the Reggia di Venaria, a UNESCO baroque palace with sixty hectares of gardens.
Verduno
Province: Cuneo · 381 m
A Langhe hilltop at 381 meters, the home village of the Pelaverga grape.
Dogliani
Province: Cuneo · 295 m
A two-tier Langhe town at 295 meters, the Borgo by the Rea stream and the Castello on the hill, capital of Dolcetto di Dogliani DOCG.
Grinzane Cavour
Province: Cuneo · 195 m
The Langhe village whose eleventh-century castle was Cavour's mayoral seat for seventeen years and now hosts the November Alba White Truffle World Auction.
Mergozzo
Province: Verbano-Cusio-Ossola · 204 m
A village on the western shore of a small lake cut off from its larger neighbor by river sediment, with a centuries-old elm on its lakefront piazza.
Acqui Terme
Province: Alessandria · 156 m
A Roman spa town at 156 meters on the Bormida, where a sulphurous spring still surfaces at 74.5 degrees under an 1870 pavilion.
Baveno
Province: Verbano-Cusio-Ossola · 205 m
A lake town at 205 meters whose quarries supplied columns for Milan's cathedral and a major basilica in Rome.
Cocconato
Province: Asti · 491 m
A Monferrato ridge town at 491 meters with a microclimate mild enough to grow palms and olives this far north.
Govone
Province: Cuneo · 301 m
A Roero hill village above the Tanaro, between Alba and Asti, built around a Savoy summer residence turned town hall.
Ivrea
Province: Torino · 267 m
Roman Eporedia, Olivetti's twentieth-century industrial city, UNESCO since 2018, where every February three hundred tons of oranges are thrown.
Ovada
Province: Alessandria · 186 m
The Monferrato town at 186 meters where the Orba meets the Stura, the first Dolcetto DOC zone in Piemonte and now DOCG.
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From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Giano dell'Umbria
Province: Perugia
A hill commune between Foligno, Spoleto and Todi, anchored by a Romanesque abbey built over the tomb of a fourth-century martyr.
Assisi
Province: Perugia
A pink limestone town at 424 meters on the western flank of a mountain above the plain, the birthplace of Francis and a UNESCO site since 2000.
Servigliano
Province: Fermo
An eighteenth-century ideal city at 215 meters in the Tenna valley, rebuilt by papal commission on a 137-by-144-meter quadrangle after the old hill village collapsed.
Labro
Province: Rieti
A 355-person stone borgo at 628 meters, restored since the 1960s by a Belgian architect and his descendants.
San Nicola Arcella
Province: Cosenza
A cliff village above the Tyrrhenian Riviera dei Cedri, where a sea arch fronts a cove only reachable on foot or by boat.