Hill towns

Hill towns in Piedmont

36 towns

The ridge and hilltop borghi, sitting around 400 metres. Vineyards below, one road up, walkable once you are there. Good in almost any season.

Chiusa di Pesio
Province: Cuneo · 575 m
The valley mouth town at 575 meters where the Pesio leaves the mountains, founded around a Carthusian monastery donated in 1173.
La Morra
Province: Cuneo · 513 m
The hilltop above the Barolo zone, more Nebbiolo acreage than any other commune.
Susa
Province: Torino · 503 m
The Roman gateway at 503 meters, seat of the Cozii under Augustus and Cottius.
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.
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.
Varallo
Province: Vercelli · 450 m
The capital of Valsesia at 450 meters, crowned by a forty-five-chapel devotional complex on the rock above town.
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.
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.
Avigliana
Province: Torino · 383 m
A medieval Savoy town at 383 meters at the mouth of the Susa Valley, between two glacial lakes and the abbey on the mountain above.
Verduno
Province: Cuneo · 381 m
A Langhe hilltop at 381 meters, the home village of the Pelaverga grape.
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.
Candelo
Province: Biella · 350 m
A Biellese commune at 350 meters whose Ricetto, a 13th-century fortified shelter of two hundred stone cellule, is the best-preserved in Piedmont.
Castiglione Falletto
Province: Cuneo · 350 m
A Barolo hilltop commune in the Langhe, ringed by vineyards on both sides of its ridge.
Agliè
Province: Torino · 330 m
A Canavese borgo at 330 meters whose Castello Ducale, a UNESCO Savoy residence since 1997, has been held by the d'Agliè since 1259.
Neive
Province: Cuneo · 308 m
A hilltop borgo at 308 meters in the Barbaresco zone, named for the Roman gens Naevia, with four wines in commercial volume.
Moncalvo
Province: Asti · 305 m
Italy's smallest city by title, 2,730 residents on a Monferrato ridge, with a five-hundred-year truffle tradition and Guglielmo Caccia's home churches.
Serralunga di Crea
Province: Alessandria · 302 m
A commune of 503 holding the Sacro Monte di Crea, a UNESCO Sacri Monti site of 23 chapels around a Marian sanctuary.
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.
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.
Castagnole delle Lanze
Province: Asti · 298 m
An Asti hill town at 298 meters between Langhe and Monferrato, with two Baroque churches and a nineteenth-century astronomical tower.
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.
Bra
Province: Cuneo · 290 m
A Roero town at 290 meters where the world's first gastronomic university now teaches food systems.
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.
Domodossola
Province: Verbano-Cusio-Ossola · 272 m
The Ossola capital at 272 meters at the foot of the Simplon Pass.
Garbagna
Province: Alessandria · 270 m
A borgo at 270 meters with tall Ligurian-style houses, held together by narrow stone streets and carved portals.
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.
Cella Monte
Province: Alessandria · 268 m
A 465-person Monferrato Casalese borgo at 268 meters, built entirely from a sandstone found only here, riddled underneath with cellars carved into the same stone.
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.
Nizza Monferrato
Province: Asti · 267 m
The capital of Barbera at 267 meters in the upper Monferrato, founded 1225.
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.
Racconigi
Province: Cuneo · 262 m
A Po-plain town south of Torino built around the UNESCO Castello Reale, the Carignano Savoy residence whose park holds Italy's largest white-stork colony.
Mombaldone
Province: Asti · 260 m
A walled village of 197 residents, the only borgo in its area that still holds its full medieval perimeter.
Cortemilia
Province: Cuneo · 247 m
An Alta Langa town at 247 meters split by the Bormida, capital of the Tonda Gentile di Langa hazelnut.
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.
Vogogna
Province: Verbano-Cusio-Ossola · 226 m
An Ossola medieval capital at 226 meters on the Toce, with a castle of 1348 and five centuries as seat of the lower valley's jurisdiction.
Ornavasso
Province: Verbano-Cusio-Ossola · 215 m
A Toce-valley town at 215 meters, marble quarry for a famous Milan cathedral and the southernmost Walser colony in the Ossola.

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