Italy · Piemonte · Historic villages
the town of towers and white truffles, with the Langhe beginning where the houses end
Alba stands on the right bank of the Tanaro, at the point where the plain ends and the hills of the Langhe begin. It was Alba Pompeia, and the centre still keeps the plan of the Roman town: the via Maestra is the old cardo, via Cavour the decumanus, and Piazza Risorgimento stands where the forum was. In the Middle Ages the wealthy families built towers here, to defend themselves and to be seen, so many that it was called the town of a hundred towers: today only a few are still standing, and many others are stumps cut off at the height of the roofs. The twentieth century did the rest. Here Pietro Ferrero opened his workshop and in 1946 invented the gianduia paste that Nutella came from; here Beppe Fenoglio was born, who told the story of the twenty three days in the autumn of 1944 when the town belonged to the partisans. And through here, every autumn, passes the white truffle: the International Fair runs for two months, and the centre, which is entirely pedestrian, is walked in half a day.
Sleeping
Alba has no municipal motorhome area: you sleep at the campsite, half an hour on foot from the centre, or in the car park of the Ferrero factory, which has an area set aside for motorhomes.
Corso Piave 219, 12051 Alba (CN)
the hotel's campsite, with pitches in the shade of big trees and a swimming pool in summer. Check-in from 10, check-out by 11. There is a disposal point, but the operator describes it as a chemical toilet into which grey water is emptied too. Last winter it closed from 1 November to 1 April, that is, halfway through the Fair
twenty five pitches, for motorhomes, caravans and tents
Via Ognissanti, 12051 Alba (CN)
the car park of the Ferrero factory, which sets aside an area for motorhomes. At weekends, when the factory stops, parking is also tolerated in the white bays. From the car park to the centre is a quarter of an hour on foot
Piazzale Cesare Pio, 12051 Alba (CN)
the large car park between the centre and the Tanaro, partly shaded, where cars and motorhomes park together. It is reported by community sites, and the coordinates are theirs. It is for the daytime, to leave the motorhome and walk up to Piazza Risorgimento in five minutes: at night it has nothing, and on Fair weekends it fills up early
Getting around
The centre is a pedestrian area, and the motorhome stays outside the ring of avenues around it.
Seeing
You begin in Piazza Risorgimento, where the cathedral, the town hall and the tallest towers stand, and walk down the via Maestra as far as the Maddalena. Everything lies within less than a kilometre. Tap a marker on the map to open its entry below.
Square · free entry · 44.70074, 8.03583
the Duomo square, as everyone calls it, stands where the Roman forum was and then the medieval platea, from which the town's streets set out. On one side is the cathedral, on the other the town hall with its arcade, and above the houses rise the Sineo and Bonino towers. Until 1866 there was another one, the Negri tower, taller than all the rest, which was pulled down. On Saturday mornings the square fills with the stalls of the market.
Church · free entry · 44.70071, 8.03663
Piazza Risorgimento, 12051 Alba (CN)
the mother church, on the eastern side of the forum of Alba Pompeia. Beneath it lies a story a thousand years long: a first church of the sixth century with its baptistery, the Romanesque cathedral of the eleventh, the twelfth century bell tower that encloses an older one. The church you see was wanted by bishop Andrea Novelli between 1486 and 1516, and the brick façade with its rose window is the restoration by Edoardo Arborio Mella, between 1867 and 1872. Inside, the banded columns and the blue starry vaults, and behind the altar the wooden choir by Bernardino Fossati, of 1512: thirty five stalls inlaid with still lifes and imaginary cities. From the MUDI, the diocesan museum, which opens onto piazza Rossetti on the side of the bell tower, you go down into the excavations: the Roman streets, the first church, the baptismal font. It costs 5 euros, and in October and November 2026 it is open Tuesday to Friday 15:00-18:00, Saturday and Sunday 11:00-18:30. The bell tower can only be climbed on a guided tour, on a few dates: for the 2026 Fair they are Sunday 25 October and Sunday 22 November, at 15 and at 17, 10 euros, booking on 345 7642123.
Monument · 44.70096, 8.03568
Piazza Risorgimento 1, 12051 Alba (CN)
the town hall, begun in the fourteenth century and reordered in the nineteenth by the architect Giorgio Busca, with its arcade on the square and the arch that runs through it. Inside, in the council chamber, hang an altarpiece by Macrino d'Alba, which used to be in the cathedral, and a Concert attributed to Mattia Preti. But it is an office building, and it can only be visited on the special openings the town announces from time to time: from outside you look at the façade with the clock.
Monument · free entry · 44.70081, 8.03534
the towers were built by the families, to defend themselves and to say how much they counted. The most recognisable stand a few steps from one another: the Torre Sineo on the corner of the square and via Cavour, the Torre Bonino on the corner with the via Maestra, and along via Cavour the Torre Astesiano, the Ravinale, the Riva and the one of Palazzo Parussa, where the bank is today. Via Cavour was the decumanus, and its first stretch is still medieval: at number 5 is the Loggia dei Mercanti, from the fourteenth century. None of the towers can be climbed; to look down on them there is the bell tower of San Giuseppe.
Church · free entry · 44.70102, 8.03373
Piazza Elvio Pertinace 4, 12051 Alba (CN)
the church of the Augustinians since 1556, with the façade and the coffered ceiling redone in 1884. It is worth it for two paintings. At the first altar on the left is the Madonna del latte by Barnaba da Modena, a panel of 1377 that comes from a demolished church; at the altar of Saint Augustine a Madonna adoring the Child that bears the signature of Macrino d'Alba and the date 1508, the painter the town regards as its own. On the square, on Saturday mornings and on Sundays in autumn, there is the Slow Food Earth Market.
Viewpoint · paid entry · 44.70165, 8.03581
Piazzetta Giovanni Paolo II, via Vernazza 6, 12051 Alba (CN)
the church built by the Company of Pilgrims from 1642, which today is a cultural centre, with concerts and exhibitions. The bell tower with its onion dome can be climbed: there are about two hundred steps, and at the top is the view you get nowhere else, the towers side by side above the red roofs and the cathedral with the hills behind. Beneath the chapel of the Crucifix you go down instead into the archaeological route, with the remains of the Roman theatre and of a medieval tower.
Walk · free entry · 44.69987, 8.03484
the cardo of the Roman town and the shopping street, pedestrian, running down from Piazza Risorgimento towards piazza Michele Ferrero. It is Alba's promenade, and on Fair weekends the promenade of half the Langhe. Along the way you pass the palaces of the nobility, such as that of the Conti Belli at number 16, the lowered medieval tower at 17, and further down the Maddalena and Santi Cosma e Damiano. The Ferrero family's pastry shop was on the via Maestra too, before the factory.
Church · paid entry · 44.69941, 8.03630
Via Teobaldo Calissano, 12051 Alba (CN)
Alba's Gothic church, in brick, with four buttresses on the façade and the portal of white and red arches, with the Madonna and saints painted in the lunette. Inside, the chequered columns and the frescoes of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries on the pillars and the vaults. It is still consecrated, but it is used for concerts and exhibitions, and it is kept open by the Famija Albèisa. There is also a sculpture by Leonardo Bistolfi that Luigi Einaudi gave to the town in memory of those who fell in the Liberation.
Church · free entry · 44.69857, 8.03478
Via Vittorio Emanuele 28, 12051 Alba (CN)
the church of the convent that the Blessed Margaret of Savoy founded here in 1442, rebuilt in the mid eighteenth century to a design by Bernardo Vittone. The façade was never finished, and the bricks are left bare; inside, on the other hand, there is the frescoed dome and the shrine with the relics of the Blessed. Behind the church is the choir, a long hall with wooden stalls where concerts and exhibitions are held. Next door, the Cortile della Maddalena is the former convent: it houses the library, the Museo Eusebio and the truffle museum, and in autumn the World White Truffle Market, with its entrance from piazza Falcone.
Museum · paid entry · 44.69861, 8.03567
Via Vittorio Emanuele 19, 12051 Alba (CN)
the civic museum of archaeology and natural sciences, founded in 1897 by Federico Eusebio, twenty one rooms. There is the Roman town, with the frescoes of the houses found beneath today's buildings, and there are the fossils of the Alba whale and the Verduno mastodon. It reopened, renovated, on 15 August 2026. This is also where Alba Sotterranea ends, the guided tour with an archaeologist through three of the underground sites of the Roman and medieval town: an hour and forty minutes, 13 euros, 12 if booked online by Wednesday, museum included. It is run by the Ambiente & Cultura association, booking is compulsory, on ambientecultura.it. It usually runs on two Saturdays and two Sundays a month, but in October and November every weekend.
Museum · paid entry · 44.69912, 8.03567
Piazzetta Giovanni Falcone 1, 12051 Alba (CN)
the multimedia museum of the white truffle, in the Cortile della Maddalena, next to the World Market, with the photographs of the truffle hunters and their dogs that Steve McCurry took in the Langhe. For anyone arriving out of season it is the way to understand why so many people come here in autumn.
Church · free entry · 44.69838, 8.03422
Via Vittorio Emanuele 30, 12051 Alba (CN)
at the bottom of the via Maestra, almost opposite the Maddalena. It was already there in the twelfth century, on top of Roman remains, but it was rebuilt from scratch in the eighteenth: the baroque façade, white and full of movement, is best looked at from just below, and the bell tower is neoclassical.
Church · 44.68588, 8.03409
Corso Langhe 106, 12051 Alba (CN)
outside the centre, on the road that climbs towards the Langhe. It began as a votive pillar of 1685 to the Madonna of Loreto and became a chapel in 1711; the present sanctuary, a Greek cross with a large painted dome, was designed by Giuseppe Gualandi and built between 1905 and 1908. Inside there are more than a thousand ex votos. You go by motorhome, or on foot in about twenty minutes; no official source publishes the opening times.
When
Autumn in Alba is the Fair, and the Fair brings the festivals of the borghi along with it.
Next: International Alba White Truffle Fair · 10-11 Octin 4 days
in 2026 it is the ninety sixth, from 10 October to 6 December. Its heart is the World Market in the Cortile della Maddalena, Saturday and Sunday 9:30-19:30, 6 euros, free up to fifteen: the truffles are checked by the judges of the National Truffle Study Centre. The world auction, this year on 8 November, is linked up with the castle of Grinzane Cavour
the centre turns into a party, with the kitchens of the borghi and old games. In 2026 Saturday 17 October from 18 to midnight and Sunday 18 from 10 to 19, free entry
in Piazza Risorgimento, beneath the towers, the flag-waving groups and the drums: solo routines with several flags at once, pairs moving in mirror image. In 2026 it is Sunday 25 October at 15:00, free entry
the nine borghi of the town race on donkeys, after a medieval parade with more than a thousand people in costume. In 2026 it is Sunday 4 October, the parade at 14:30 is free, stand seats for the race cost from 30 euros
the wine fair of the Langhe, Roero and Monferrato, with the wineries' stands along the streets of the centre. In 2026 it was the forty eighth
classical music in the churches and courtyards of the centre, from San Domenico to the Maddalena
Remember
Alba · part two
and then?
What to taste, and where to go tomorrow.
In Alba the white truffle is eaten on the simplest dish, so that its scent stays its own.
Looking
27 shots from our visit. Tap one to see it large.