Museo delle Langhe Entrance Ticket

Visit: Grinzane Cavour Castle, Via del Castello 5, 12060 Grinzane Cavour Italy

Built in the first half of the 13th century, the castle has undergone several architectural changes. The most recent renovations were carried out in 1961, to mark the centenary of Italian unification. The imposing redbrick building is based on a trapezoidal plan, with four sections arranged irregularly around the small main courtyard. It was extended in the 16th century with the addition of two picturesque round turrets; the coffered ceiling with 157 painted panels in the Hall of Masks dates back to the same period. Today the castle houses the "Cavour" Regional Enoteca, a restaurant and an Ethnographic museum of rural life. The latter features exhibits on a variety of themes: Cavourian relics, wines from Alba in the Roman world, 17th and 19th-century local kitchen settings, wine glasses, objects relating to Albas food and wine traditions, the workshops of a blacksmith and a cooper, an 18th-century distillery, farmyard implements, weights and measures, information about truffles.

The old parish church, built by Count Camillo of Cavour, dedicated to Our Lady of the Carmine, is also worthy of mention.