Venice, the Amalfi Coast, Tuscany: where most minds drift to when Italy and all its Dolce Vita charms surface in conversation. Piedmont, by comparison, rarely gets a look in, unless, of course, you’re familiar with Alba’s autumn truffle market, Barolo and Barbaresco wine grown in the Langhe and Monferrato hills, and Turin’s palazzi-scattered Savoy legacy.
Tucked into Italy’s north-western corner at the foot of the Alps, Piedmont is a pastoral patchwork of vineyards, farmland and wooded hills, brushing against both the French and Swiss borders. A stay here can combine Piedmont’s slow food and wine-making culture with lakeside glamour and day trips to little Medieval towns and elegant cities. As a previous capital of the Kingdom of Italy, Turin is particularly beguiling in its Baroque frock – a maze of museums (not least the Museo Egizio), UNESCO-listed royal residences, all without the Florence of Venice crowds and historic cafés doling out bicerin like medicine (a rich Turin speciality of espresso with milk and dark hot chocolate). Beyond the city walls, stays – reverential to local landscape and folk culture – inhale the crisp, country air, hoiking guests high above the hills braided by vines and surrounding patchwork of green. Eccentric palazzi gaze across lakes that have, for the most part, been spared the crowds and tourism circus engulfing their better known, easterly cousins.
Whether dropping bags for a wine-tasting weekend, hunkering down in an agriturismo with a side of truffle hunting, or retreating to the bejewelled salons of palazzi flaunting their Belle Époque good looks over the lakes, you’ll find Piedmont’s hotels are quietly conscious of their region’s top-tier produce and relatively unsung charms. Here are the best hotels in Piedmont, Italy.