I'm having some trouble planning a trip to Piedmont in June and hoping someone can give me some advice. My boyfriend needs to do archival research in Alessandria. Since it is just an hour by train to Turin, Milan and Genoa it seemed like a good idea to just stay there so he can work and I can take day trips. The problem is that I can't find information on Alessandria in guidebooks and the internet isn't yielding very many hotel listings.

I've searched this forum, checked venere.com, trip advisor, done an article search in Ebsco host, poked around on Google. If anyone has been to Alessandria or has suggestions of other places to check please let me know!

topping...

My husband and I stayed at an awesome bed and breakfast near Monferrato It is pretty close to where you are going. The name is Ca'San Sebastiano. The email address is [email protected] The owners have a winery and the casa has a beautiful pool and nice views.

Hi, cecilia,

I live in Acqui Terme, which is about 20 miles from Alessandria. There is really not much information about Alessandria in tour books. It is a nice city, the "county seat" more or less for this area. You are absolutely right, day trips to Milan, Torino and Genoa will be easy.

I also suggest coming down deep into the Monferrato to see the beautiful wine country. YOu can take the train to Acqui Terme for almost no money and do a day at the thermal spas...they sell day passes. There are many lovely bed and breakfasts between Acqui Terme, Alessandria, Nizza Monferrato and literally miles and miles of vineyards in between. Alessandria itself is still on the lower part of the Padano Plain, so it is flat there. The landscape immediately around Alessandria is not very attractive and that is maybe why there is not alot of tourism there. YOu need to come a bit east and/or south of Alessandria in order to see the TRUE beauty of the Monferrato.

Diana

Thank you for the responses. I figured that Alessandria must not be the most attractive city when I had so much trouble finding information on it. We finally found listings for some budget hotels near the train station so I think we will just pick one of them to stay at during the week when the archives are open and then on the weekend we can rent a car and explore the countryside and hopefully stay in a nice B&B.