★ History and art · Susa Valley and the valleys around TurinFenestrelleAn alpine fortress that climbs the mountainside for about three kilometres, known as 'the Great Wall of Piedmont'.
The storyThe House of Savoy began building it in 1728 to close the Chisone valley to French invasions. It is the largest alpine fortification in Europe: forts, redoubts and batteries are linked by a covered staircase of about four thousand steps. It was also a prison: after Italian unification soldiers of the Bourbon army were among those held here, a story still debated today.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ History and art · Canavese, Biella and ValsesiaIvreaA medieval town on the Dora river with a district of modernist factories, offices, houses and nurseries, a UNESCO site as an 'industrial city of the 20th century'.
The storyHere Camillo Olivetti founded Italy's first typewriter factory in 1908. Between the 1930s and the 1950s his son Adriano brought in the best architects to build factories with large glass walls, social services, libraries and housing for employees, convinced that a company should improve the life of its community. The Lettera 22 and the first Italian computers came from here. Ivrea is also famous for its Carnival and the Battle of the Oranges.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Town · Canavese, Biella and ValsesiaCandeloA fortified medieval village of cobbles and brick, with about two hundred small buildings lined up along lanes called rue.
The storyThe ricetto was not a village where people lived but a shared fortified store: between the 14th and 15th centuries the townspeople built their cellars and granaries here to protect wine and harvests from war and looting, while living outside the walls. It is one of the best-preserved ricetti in Europe, and many buildings are still used as cellars.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Nature · Lake Maggiore, Lake Orta and OssolaCossognoThe largest wilderness area in Italy, between Lake Maggiore and the Ossola valley, with dense forests, roadless valleys and ruined summer farms.
The storyUntil the mid-20th century the valleys were home to shepherds and woodcutters who went up to the summer pastures. In June 1944 a major Nazi-Fascist sweep hit the partisans sheltering here, and in the following decades the valleys emptied completely. Nature has taken everything back, and since 1992 it has been a national park.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Town · Langhe, Roero, Monferrato and the rice fieldsVercelliThe rice capital, surrounded by paddies that in spring become a 'chequered sea', with the basilica of Sant'Andrea, one of the first Gothic buildings in Italy.
The storyThe cathedral's chapter library holds the Vercelli Book, a late 10th-century manuscript containing some of the oldest poems in Old English. No one knows for sure how it got here: perhaps it was left by a pilgrim heading to Rome along the Via Francigena, which passes through Vercelli.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ History and art · Langhe, Roero, Monferrato and the rice fieldsLa MorraA small chapel in the middle of the vineyards, painted in vivid colours by two contemporary artists.
The storyIt was built in 1914 as a shelter for vineyard workers during storms and was never consecrated. Abandoned for decades, in 1999 the winemaking family that owns the vineyards invited the American artist Sol LeWitt and the Englishman David Tremlett to paint it, one the outside and the other the inside. It has since become one of the iconic images of the Langhe.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ History and art · Langhe, Roero, Monferrato and the rice fieldsCella MonteSmall underground rooms carved by hand into the soft stone beneath the houses of the Lower Monferrato villages, used to store wine.
The storyFor centuries farmers patiently dug these rooms, without any plans, into pietra da cantoni, a sandstone that is easy to work and keeps a constant temperature and humidity. Every infernot is different, with niches, benches and tables cut from the rock. In 2014 they became part of the UNESCO site together with the vineyard landscapes of the Langhe, Roero and Monferrato.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Town · Cuneo and the Occitan valleysElvaA mountain village in an Occitan valley, with a parish church frescoed by a Flemish painter and a museum devoted to hair.
The storyFor centuries the men of Elva, the 'pelassiers', left the valley in winter and walked across Italy and France buying women's hair, which was then made into wigs sold all over Europe. In the early 16th century the painter Hans Clemer painted a cycle of frescoes in the church that is astonishing for such a remote village. The Maira valley keeps the Occitan language and music alive.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ History and art · Cuneo and the Occitan valleysVicoforteA Baroque sanctuary in open countryside below the hills around Mondovì, with a gigantic dome.
The storyThe sanctuary was begun in 1596 at the wish of Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy, who wanted it as his family's mausoleum. The dome, completed in 1733 by Francesco Gallo, is the largest elliptical dome in the world, with a fresco covering more than six thousand square metres. A guided route takes you up to the cornice and the lantern.
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