Province AL
Tortona, AL
A town founded as the Roman Dertona around 120 BC at the junction of the Via Postumia and the Via Aemilia Scauri. Today it is the centre of the Colli Tortonesi wine zone and the place most associated with the revival of the Timorasso white grape, now sold under the Derthona name.
Sights
- Duomo di Tortona, a mid-16th-century cathedral with a 19th-century neoclassical front and paintings by Camillo Procaccini
- Palazzo Guidobono, a 15th-century Gothic building with Renaissance frescoes, housing civic collections
- The Roman mausoleum, a substantial surviving funerary monument
- Basilica Santuario Madonna della Guardia, an early 20th-century sanctuary founded by Saint Luigi Orione
- Abbazia di Santa Maria di Rivalta, a Romanesque abbey founded before 1151, with 15th-century frescoes
Things to do
- Taste Timorasso, the reason wine travellers now come here
- Walk up to the Madonna della Guardia sanctuary for the view over the Scrivia valley
- Look for local truffles, the Tortonesi hills produce white, black and scorzone varieties
- Base yourself here to drive the Colli Tortonesi hill roads
Annual events
6 March
Festa di San Marziano
Patronal feast of the diocese, with veneration of the relics in the cathedral.
May
Festa di Santa Croce
Cathedral relic festival on the second Sunday in May, so the date moves.
29 August
Festa della Madonna della Guardia
The statue carried on shoulders in procession between the sanctuary and the cathedral, a tradition dating from 1931.
When to visit
September and October, for the Timorasso harvest, truffles and hill walking.
