Perhaps best known for its annual Palio, a 700-year-old bare-back horse race replete with pageantry and tradition, Asti also has a lot to offer architecturally and gastronomically. The Northern Italian city once had more than 70 towers, which symbolized wealth and power. While there are less of them punctuating Asti’s skyline today, the city also features impressive churches and palazzi, beautiful brickwork, and varied architectural styles ranging from Gothic to Baroque to Renaissance.
Which of these finestre are you most drawn to?
Where in the World?
Planning Pointers:
- Asti is located in Italy’s Piedmont (Piemonte) region, about 55 km (30 miles) southeast of Turin, and 140 km (85 miles) southwest of Milan. High-speed trains link the Piedmont area to Italian tourist meccas such as Rome and Venice. See Trenitalia for schedules and prices.
- We traveled by train from Milan to Asti, and even day-tripped to Turin using Asti as our home-base. While we found mass transit accessibility to be good in these larger Italian cities, we were told that public transportation is quite limited in Piemonte’s countryside. Locals routinely advised us to rent a car or hire a private driver.
- In Asti, we stayed at the La Fabbrica dell’Oro Hotel (affiliate link). The hotel was clean and centrally-located, and it was just around the corner from a tiny supermarket. We enjoyed our Palio-themed room, as well as all the black & white family photographs adorning the entryway. (The other night, we stayed at a lovely agriturismo in the Monferrato hills.)
- For more information, visit the Asti Province Tourism website.
- Need more inspiration? This link contains an index of all my posts from Italy.
- Do you fancy collages? From windows of the world, to brilliantly-coiffed German horse tails, and fanciful Moldovan water wells, I have many more cultural offerings in my collage series. Please enjoy!
Photography & text © Tricia A. Mitchell. All Rights Reserved.
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