Neive

Neive is a town of 3,300 people (2020) in Piedmont, Italy. It is included among the "most beautiful villages in Italy" (I borghi più belli d'Italia) and has been awarded the orange flag by the Italian Touring Club.

Understand

The atmosphere of the ancient village has been maintained thanks to the winding cobbled streets that are arranged in rings around the top of the hill or that rise towards the Clock Tower (13th century), symbol of the ancient municipality.

Like many villages in Piedmont, Neive is known for its barolo and barbaresco wineries.

Get in

By plane

The city is 54 km from Cuneo International Airport, which is connected to the city by aerobus; national and international flights depart from this airport.

• National flights: Alghero, Cagliari, Trapani.
• International flights: Bacău, Bucharest-Otopeni, Casablanca, Medjugorje (Mostar), Palma de Mallorca, Rhodes, Tirana.

By car

The city of Neive can be reached via the A33 Cuneo-Asti motorway and the A6 Turin-Savona motorway.

By train

The nearest station is Alba, from where bus connections to Neive leave.

By bus

Neive is connected with other places through the Bus Company.

See

Stronghold (casaforte)

Clock Tower

Parish Church

The historic centre retains a medieval structure that thickens in the upper part where some vestiges of the shelter remain, although the ancient castle was destroyed in 1276 during one of the many wars between the municipalities of Asti and Alba.

The heart of the village is represented by Piazza Italia: almost an 18th-century living room which overlooks the administrative offices of the country. You immediately notice a white building - the ancient Palazzo del Municipio - with slender arches and pilasters, which bears a conspicuous municipal coat of arms at the top, under the clock.

The offices of the Municipality are now on the other side of the square, in a building with an exposed brick facade, the Palazzo Borgese.

Other historical memories are represented by the numerous terracotta buildings:

• The Casaforte dei Conti Cotti di Ceres, built in the 13th century by a family of bankers near the Clock Tower; in it Francesco Cotti wrote in the late 17th century one of the oldest Piedmontese texts on the cultivation of the vine.
• The Palace of the Countess Demaria (16th century), near the San Rocco gate, not far from which is also the 18th-century Palazzo Bongioanni Cocito.
• The Palazzo dei Conti di Castelborgo (18th century), a stately home that houses the Castello di Neive farm adjacent to the palace are the Conti di Castelborgo Gardens (once much larger and more cared for) which can be accessed through an entrance with arches and coupled columns.

Among the religious buildings - apart from the churches of San Rocco and San Sebastiano on the edge of the village:

• The church of the Arciconfraternita di San Michele , built in the second half of the 18th century by the Neivese architect Giovanni Antonio Borgese. Seen from the square in front, the church appears, for reasons of space, flattened at the front with respect to the apse ; it is characterized by the strong upward thrust of the brick façade in Baroque style, made more evident by the dome and the bell tower; the interior, in the form of a Greek cross, is characterized by its neo-classical simplicity. The organ is in the gallery, attributable to the Swiss organ builder Caspar Langenstein (1630).
• The Parish Church of Saints Peter and Paul, built in 1750 on a project by Francesco Gallo. The neo-classical facade is characterized by the division into pilasters that suggest its structure with three naves and the pediment; inside there is, among other works, a wooden choir.

Drink

There are four types of wines that are produced on the hills of Neivese:

• Barbera d'Alba
• Dolcetto d'Alba
• Barbaresco
• Moscato d'Asti