The funicular and Piazza Maggiore
At the foot of the Ligurian Alps, south east of Cuneo, Mondovì is a city divided into two parts: Breo, the lower town, a commercial district along the river Ellero, and Piazza, the upper town, on the top of a hill, the oldest and most monumental part, connected to Breo by a funicular inaugurated in 1886 and rebuilt in 2006, with glass cabins. Mondovì was in the sixteenth century the seat of the first university of Piedmont, and the first book printed in Piedmont was produced here in 1472.
The heart of the upper town is the sloping, elongated Piazza Maggiore, one of the most beautiful squares in Piedmont, surrounded by arcaded palaces, the former Bishop's Palace, the Palazzo del Governatore and the baroque church of the Missione, by Andrea Pozzo, with an extraordinary interior frescoed with a trompe-l'oeil dome and architecture that seem real. From the Belvedere, a garden with a medieval tower at the top of the hill, the view sweeps over the Alps from Monviso to the Ligurian peaks and over the plain. The upper town also houses the Museo della Ceramica, which recalls the city's tradition of decorated earthenware, with the typical cockerel motif. Every January, Mondovì hosts an international hot-air balloon festival.
Tip: park in Breo and take the funicular up; the sanctuary of Vicoforte, with its giant dome, is a few kilometres away.
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