Buying real estate in Piedmont

The name Piedmont (or ‘Piemonte’ in Italian) literally means ‘at the foot of the mountains’, and that's just where you’ll be living if you buy real estate in this region tucked into the north-east corner of Italy. High inland, the region has cold, foggy winters and hot summers. And very usefully for anyone looking at property for sale in Piedmont, it is joined to France via the Frejus Tunnel.

Edged by the French and Swiss Alps, which define the border with Italy, Piedmont is as far as you can get from the Mediterranean languor of Sicily or Puglia. Until the late 1800s, and the nationalism that accompanied the Italian Risorgimento and unification, the language of Piedmont was French, and the Piedmontese dialect maintains a strong Gallic flavour. In neighbouring Valle d’Aosta the Walser migrants from Switzerland maintain a dialect based on old German.

Real estate in Piedmont — great skiing and sightseeing

Skiing is a huge business here, and Piedmont has dozens of fine resorts — famous names include Prato Nevoso, Limone Piemonte, Sestriere and Sauze D’Oulx. And if you prefer to sightsee mountains, rather than speeding down them, you won’t be disappointed. Spectacular peaks such as Gran Paradiso and Monte Rosa make this a quite beautiful corner of Italy. Buy a property in Piedmont, and some of the world’s most marvellous scenery is on your doorstep. If you are planning to visit Piedmont, you'll find a wide range of hotels featured on ahotelinitaly.com. They all offer instant reservation, and there's a wide choice of hotels in Turin and the rest of Piedmont.

Piedmont is equally famous for money and big business. The regional capital, Turin, home to (faltering) industrial giant Fiat, is sometimes avoiding by outsiders wary of smokestacks and pollution. It’s a lot more than that though. You may not have considered buying property in Turin, but it’s worth consideration. Friedrich Nietzsche rhapsodised about its ‘aristocratic calm’ and lack of ‘nasty suburbs’. That’s changed rather — all those Fiat workers have to live somewhere after all — but it’s still an elegantly laid-out grid of Baroque palazzi, opulent churches and some marvellous museums and galleries. It has good food and wine, Serie A and B football with Juventus and Torino, and a river (the Po) running through — all the trappings of a civilised city in fact and Turin has some superb property for sale.

Real estate in Piedmont — food and wine

The marvellous food could be one reason you’re looking to buy real estate in Italy, and few regions beat Piedmont on that score. It’s a very rich cuisine, and has close links with France. Butter and cream replace olive oil, and Piedmont is famous for the white truffle (centred on Alba), porcini mushrooms, chestnuts and bagna caoda, a version of fondue. It’s the centre of the Slow Food movement, and one of Turin’s big yearly events is the Salone del Gusto. Wine includes robust reds to add to the whites we tend to associate with Italy — Nebbiolo, Barolo and Barbera all improve with ageing. The town of Asti produces excellent, light sparkling white wines, while Cinzano and Martini are produced near Turin.

Where to buy property in Piedmont

The other provinces of Piedmont are the hilly region of Asti, a centre for winemaking and truffle hunting; the wool and textile centre of Biella; Cuneo, which leads into the Maritime Alps, and includes the truffle centre of Alba; Alessandria, which is home to the spa town of Acqui Terme; the rice-growing centre of Vercelli; the low-lying industrial area of Novara; and Verbania, which forms the western shore of Lake Maggiore. If you’re hunting for real estate for sale in Piedmont, think laterally. Prices are reasonable compared to Veneto and Tuscany say, and though the Alps and Turin offer great properties for sale, it’s well worth looking at potential homes in Alba and the rest.

Recent properties for sale included a little wine estate in Castagnole Lanza, just outside Alba, with vineyards, poplars and cornfields at just €95,000, including 10 hectares of beautifully kept Muscat vineyard. At the other endof the scale, what about a restored 17th century castle sitting in 11 hectares of its own land outside the lovely town of Asti, at €1.3m.