The Medieval Towers of Alba site features

The towers are not a site. They are a layer of the town, and reading them is a matter of looking at rooflines.

Start in piazza Risorgimento, with the cathedral and the town hall, and work towards via Cavour. That stretch holds the best-preserved of what is left.

Via Cavour is one of the principal arteries of the historic centre and preserves a typically medieval layout. On it are the Casaforte Riva and the Loggia dei Mercanti, which consists of three great external arches resting a little below street level, with further smaller arcades glimpsed in the basement — the merchants' loggia of a medieval trading town, now partly underground because the street rose.

On the small piazza San Francesco, to the left, is the former Palazzo del Tribunale, on the site where the church of San Francesco had been raised.

Via Vittorio Emanuele — always Alba's main street, and called "Via Maestra" by the people of Alba — begins at piazza Risorgimento and crosses the whole historic centre. It is an expression of different architectural styles, from the medieval to the Liberty. At number 11 is Casa Fontana, with its terracotta formelle.

In via Calissano, the Torre di Casa Chiarlone: cut down almost to the roofline, its base at street level, an 18th-century wooden door on it.

Between piazza Risorgimento and via Cavour

The stretch the record names as holding the best-preserved towers. If you walk one street in Alba with your head up, this is it.

Torre di Casa Chiarlone, via Calissano

A tower now lowered almost to the level of the adjacent roofs, with a base resting at street level and an 18th-century wooden door. The clearest lesson in what happened to Alba's towers: they were not demolished so much as cut down and kept.

Palazzo Marro, piazza San Giovanni

Despite its imposing appearance it is considered one of the hundred towers. Proof that a tower in Alba can look nothing like a tower.

The Loggia dei Mercanti, via Cavour

Three great external arches, resting a little below the level of the street, with further minor arcades visible in the basement. The ground has risen around a medieval merchants' loggia.

Casaforte Riva, via Cavour

A fortified house on the same medieval artery — the domestic form that sits between a tower and a palazzo.

Via Vittorio Emanuele, the "Via Maestra"

Always the main street of Alba. It runs from piazza Risorgimento through the whole centre and shows every style from medieval to Liberty, with Casa Fontana at number 11 and its terracotta panels.