More undulating and less forested than Umbria, and with the Alps as its backdrop, Piedmont's patchwork landscape is peppered with medieval hilltop villages - Bra, Barbaresco, Nizza Monferatto, Nieve. It is also the birthplace of the Slow Food movement, its country cooking based on the most succulent home-grown ingredients and the seasons. There's a food or wine festival, it seems, almost every week of the year, and truffle-hunting in October and November. Further enticements include the market towns of Asti and Alba, the lovely spa town of Acqui Terme, and Turin, Piedmont's capital.