Life in the Middle Ages between castles and abbeys, between merchant squares and pilgrimage sanctuaries

Arrival in Racconigi by own vehicle or hired bus. Visit of the Castle where the richness of the rooms and the majesty of the surrounding park always make it different and full of surprises. The sumptuous apartments bear witness to the most significant phases of transformation that the castle underwent since the seventeenth century: stuccoes, frescoes and furnishings constitute an important panorama of the changing taste of the court over the course of about four hundred years. The gardens and the park keep intact the nineteenth-century layout, characterized by a romantic plant with waterways, ponds, caves and monuments. Next stop is Mondovì, where there will be lunch in a typical Monregalese restaurant and, to follow, a visit to the upper town, the district of Piazza, the oldest in Mondovì: an elegant lounge overlooking the whole city from above. It can be reached in about 10 minutes with a funicular that starts from the lower part. In ancient times it was the nerve center of the surrounding communities, as the seat of the Cathedral, the Town Hall and that of the Governor, and even today the Piazza district has a maze of streets and alleys, hidden squares and ups and downs that lead to suggestive corners. Last stop is the Sanctuary of Vicoforte, with its famous frescoed dome, the largest in the world in its elliptical shape. The interior of the Sanctuary consists of a single central nave within which there is a small temple-ciborium in polychrome marble that houses the historic pylon with the image of the Madonna that gave rise to the construction of the sacred complex.