Asti, Italy

Asti The wine connection continues in Asti, 30km north of Alba, and the capital of Italy's sparkling wine industry, being the most famous producer of spumante. For most of the year Asti itself is fairly sedate, a small town, not unattractive, but it becomes the focus of attention in September every year, as it gears up for its Palio. Though it's taken nothing like as seriously as Siena's more famous event, and has to some extent been revived for tourists, you'd be mad to miss it if you're near here at the right time. The surrounding area hides a fine Romanesque abbey near Albugnano, the more profane attraction of steamy spa waters at Acqui Terme, and a rare glimpse of Italy's Jewish history in the grand synagogue of Casale Monferrato. In the run-up to its annual Palio, ASTI throws off its sedate air and hosts street banquets and a medieval market. On the day of the race itself, the third Sunday in September, there's a thousand-strong procession of citizens dressed as their fourteenth-century ancestors, before the frenetic bare-backed horse race around the arena of the Campo del Palio – followed by the awarding of the palio (banner) to the winner and all-night feasting and boozing. The rest of the year the Campo del Palio is a vast, bleak car park, and there's frankly not a lot to see. The arcaded Piazza Alfieri is officially the centre of town, behind which the Collegiata di San Secondo Mon–Sun 8.30am–noon & 3.30–6.30pm is dedicated to the city's patron saint, built on the site of the saint's martyrdom in the second century. There's nothing left of the second-century church but there is a fine sixth-century crypt, its columns so slender that they seem on the verge of toppling over. As for the rest of the church, it's a slick, early-Gothic construction, with neat red-brick columns topped with tidily carved capitals and in the left aisle a polyptych by one of Asti's Renaissance artists, Gandolfino d'Asti. The Palio banners are also kept here, housed in a heavily ornate Baroque chapel, along with the Carroccio – a sacred war chariot used in medieval times. The main street, Corso Alfieri, slices through the town from the Piazza Alfieri, to the east of which the church of San Pietro at Corso Alfieri 2 (Tues–Sun 9am–1pm & 4–6/7pm) has a circular twelfth-century Baptistry, now used as an exhibition space, and a museum (€4) housed in what was a pilgrim's hospice, displaying an odd – and badly labelled – assortment of Roman and Egyptian artefacts. At the other end of the Corso is the Torre Rossa, a medieval tower with a chequered top, built on the foundations of the Roman tower in which San Secondo, a Roman soldier, was imprisoned before being killed.