Mondovì, Italy

1. Piazza Maggiore (Mondovì)

Directions

Quick facts: Morning light pools in the square's shallow basin, turning worn flagstones warm and honey-colored. Cafés spill onto the arcades where locals linger over thick espresso and paper cones of salt-roasted chestnuts during cooler evenings.

Highlights: On market mornings more than 60 colorful stalls crowd the square, offering everything from antique postcards to pungent local cheeses. An arcade tucked on the north side hides a tiny workshop where a family named Bianchi hand-prints festival posters, you can hear the press's rhythmic thump as you pass.

2. Funicolare di Mondovì (Mondovì Funicular)

Directions

Official website

Quick facts: Snaking up the hillside in two colorful cars, the short route stretches about 555 meters while climbing roughly 160 meters, offering a compact but dramatic ascent. Local commuters and sightseers alike hop on for the roughly three-minute ride, which frames sweeping views of tile roofs, vineyards, and distant foothills.

Highlights: Step into a varnished, timber-paneled cabin and you'll notice the satisfying mechanical rhythm as the two counterbalanced cars glide past each other at the single midpoint passing loop. Look closely at the upper platform and you'll find a small, time-smoothed plaque and the bright echo of a brass bell used during local festivals, a tactile and sonic detail that often surprises first-time riders.

3. Cattedrale di San Donato (Duomo di Mondovì)

Quick facts: A striking mix of Baroque ornament and Neoclassical lines gives the interior a theatrical, light-filled atmosphere that rewards a slow walk. You can often spot a dramatic altarpiece and richly veined marble floors that catch the sun and make the nave shimmer at midday.

Highlights: Step in shortly before evening vespers to feel warm beeswax candlelight fill the nave and to catch the honeyed scent of smoke lingering in the stone. A low-hung wooden crucifix and the carved choir stalls work with shafts of light to throw long, moving shadows across the floor, a quietly theatrical moment photographers and locals savor.

4. Torre Civica di Mondovì

Quick facts: Step up the narrow brick stairway and you'll feel the stones cool under your hand while the tower frames sweeping views across rolling vineyards and limestone ridges. An old mechanical clock still marks the hours, its face visible from the main square and a cluster of iron bells that chime on market days.

Highlights: Climb roughly 120 spiral steps to a lookout platform where a 360-degree panorama can reveal the snow-capped Alps on clear days and the smell of baking focaccia drifts up from below. Local lore credits a 1766 clockmaker named Giovanni Ruffini with the original clockwork, and during the annual Corpus Domini procession the largest bell, called Maria, is rung 33 times at dusk to signal the start of the march.

5. Chiesa di San Francesco (Mondovì)

Quick facts: Step inside and you’ll notice a long, vaulted nave lit by tall windows, where pale stucco and gilded details catch the light. Local guides point out an impressive pipe organ with over 1,000 pipes, and side chapels filled with frescoes that reward a slow, close look.

Highlights: Peer close at a side chapel and you can see tiny, hand-painted ex-voto plaques, some no bigger than a postage stamp, about 4 cm by 6 cm, each with shaky handwriting thanking a saint for small miracles. As dusk falls, the warm smell of beeswax and crushed incense rises while golden light pools on a carved wooden crucifix, making onlookers hush and camera shutters click slowly.

6. Museo della Ceramica di Mondovì

Quick facts: You'll find over 3,000 ceramic pieces that span techniques from tin-glazed maiolica to delicate Baroque figurines.

Highlights: Step into a recreated workshop corner where warm, earthy clay dust hangs in the air and the metallic tang of tin glaze seems almost audible as lamps pick out tiny brushstrokes. An installation of 150 painted tiles, each labeled with the artisan's name and glaze recipe, lets you trace pigments and patterns like a forensic map of color and technique.

7. Belvedere di Mondovì (Panoramic viewpoint)

Quick facts: A compact funicular whisks visitors up a steep limestone slope, delivering a sweeping panorama that frames the Maritime Alps and the solitary profile of Monviso on clear days. Evening visits turn practical details into spectacle, as streetlights flick on and the air fills with espresso and toasted hazelnut aromas from nearby cafés, making the view feel cinematic and intimate.

Highlights: A 90-second funicular ride ends on a terrace where pine resin and stone dust mingle in the wind, creating a tactile soundtrack for photographers chasing golden-hour light. A quirky local ritual sees about 108 smooth pebbles arranged along the balustrade before sunset, the gentle clinking becoming a rhythm that people say improves the framing of panoramic shots.

8. Palazzo Comunale di Mondovì (Town Hall)

Quick facts: A graceful marble staircase winds up to a frescoed council chamber, where afternoon light picks out gilded coats of arms and faded allegories. Beneath the main hall a tiny archive preserves handwritten municipal ledgers that creak when turned, and on official days you can smell beeswax from recently restored woodwork.

Highlights: Legend says a carved lion by the entrance hides a small brass medallion stamped "G.B. 1794," the initials of Giovanni Bianchi who secretly funded a major restoration. On summer evenings exactly 24 wooden chairs are set in the loggia while local school choirs rehearse, their voices bouncing off stone and mixing with the scent of rosemary from the window boxes.

9. Porta Soprana (Historic city gate, Mondovì)

Quick facts: Walkers pause beneath the twin stone towers, noticing grooves and tool marks that let you picture stonemasons working by torchlight. An elevated walkway between the towers gives a compact panorama over red-tiled roofs, and echoes of horse hooves still seem to answer on the cobbles at dusk.

Highlights: Climb one narrow spiral stair of about thirty-three worn steps to reach a tiny battlement, where arrow slits frame bursts of copper rooftop and the limestone smells faintly of centuries. Crouch near the inner arch to spot a single, weathered boar carved near the keystone, a mason's secret signature that locals point out with a grin during evening walks.

10. Giardini del Belvedere (Public gardens, Mondovì)

Quick facts: Terraced gardens unfurl like a green ribbon, offering wide vistas and shady lanes that locals use for an evening passeggiata. More than 200 plane and chestnut trees punctuate the walkways, and spring flower beds spill purple irises and bright yellow marigolds that scent the air.

Highlights: A semicircular terrace holds 12 carved stone benches where photographers time the golden hour and birds punctuate the silence with quick silver wingbeats. Some evenings a quirky local habit appears: visitors tuck tiny hand-painted ceramic tiles into cracks of the low wall, and you can still spot dozens signed with surnames like Rossi and Bianchi among the lichen.