Province of Novara Travel Guide: Where to Stay, Eat & Explore in Luxury

There is a version of northern Italy that doesn’t appear on mood boards. No gondolas, no Colosseum, no selfie queue outside a pastel-coloured boathouse. The Province of Novara – a broad, quietly extraordinary sweep of Piedmont running from the Po plain all the way up to the foothills of Monte Rosa – has been largely left alone by mass tourism, which means it still functions as a real place: rice fields that turn the landscape into something resembling a Flemish painting in early summer, lake shores where Italians actually holiday, medieval towns where the aperitivo hour is observed with the seriousness it deserves. This is the Italy that exists between the postcard moments – and for a certain kind of traveller, it is exactly the Italy they have been looking for.

That traveller might be a couple marking a significant anniversary, done with the idea of fighting for a sun lounger and perfectly happy to spend three days eating and drinking their way through Piedmontese cuisine without agenda. It might be a multi-generational family who need space – real space, with a garden and a pool and enough rooms that nobody has to negotiate about the bathroom – without surrendering the quality of the experience. Novara works equally well for groups of friends with a shared interest in wine (the Ghemme and Boca DOC zones are right here, and barely anyone outside Italy seems to know this), and for remote workers who have realised that fibre-optic connectivity and a terrace overlooking the Italian countryside are not mutually exclusive. Wellness-focused guests seeking slower rhythms, clean air and proximity to thermal waters will find the province obliges on all counts – graciously, and without making a fuss about it.

Getting to Novara: Surprisingly Easy for Somewhere So Few People Think to Come

The Province of Novara sits in a genuinely enviable position for a destination that receives so little international attention. Milan Malpensa – one of Europe‘s best-connected airports – is roughly 30 to 45 minutes away by road, depending on where in the province you are heading. Milan Linate offers an alternative for those arriving from European hubs, and Turin Airport is around an hour to the southwest. Direct rail connections from Milan Centrale to Novara city take around 25 minutes, making it one of those rare destinations that is effortlessly accessible without feeling overrun as a consequence.

For the arrival experience to match the quality of what awaits you, a private transfer is the obvious choice – and given the distances involved, it is not a particularly extravagant one. Travelling between the province’s key zones – Novara city, the Lago d’Orta area to the north, the wine country of the Colline Novaresi, the lakeside edge bordering Lago Maggiore – is straightforward by car, which is strongly recommended. Public transport exists and functions, but the pleasures of this province are frequently found on roads that wind between rice paddies, through hill villages, and up to viewpoints that don’t appear in any guide. Having your own vehicle means you can follow whichever direction looks most interesting. This is, it turns out, a surprisingly effective way to travel.

What to Eat and Where to Eat It: A Province That Takes This More Seriously Than You’d Expect

Fine Dining

Piedmont has one of the most serious food cultures in Italy, which is saying something. The Province of Novara sits within this tradition while adding its own particular character – the influence of the Vercelli rice fields to the south gives risotto a central role in the cuisine, and the local version, cooked with Ghemme or Boca wine and finished with local cheeses, is not a dish you eat distractedly. The truffle season, when it arrives in autumn, redirects all cooking priorities accordingly. The province has no shortage of restaurants operating at high technical level, typically in restored farmhouses or historic town palaces, where the menu reads like a love letter to the surrounding landscape – hand-rolled pasta, freshwater fish from Lago d’Orta, aged local cheeses, and meat from breeds whose names the chef will explain at some length if you show any interest at all.

Where the Locals Eat

The osteria remains a functioning institution here rather than a nostalgic concept. These are places where the menu changes according to what arrived that morning, the wine list is short and correct, and the owner may well be cooking, serving and totting up the bill with the same quiet efficiency. In and around Novara city, neighbourhood restaurants serve the kind of risotto alla novara that requires no theatre – just a wide pan, proper technique and rice that was grown forty minutes away. The Saturday market in Novara is worth organising your morning around: cheese vendors, cured meat producers and the occasional mushroom forager make this a practical and pleasurable stop regardless of whether you actually need provisions.

Hidden Gems Worth Seeking Out

The villages on and around Lago d’Orta harbour the kind of small restaurant that exists in a permanent state of being discovered and then forgotten again by visiting food journalists. The lake produces its own fish; the surrounding hills produce their own wine; the overall combination is one that rewards turning up at lunch with no reservation and seeing what happens. Agriturismo dining – where the farm feeds you directly – is particularly strong in the Colline Novaresi: these are not rustic-chic experiences but genuinely functional agricultural enterprises that happen to cook very well. The truffle hunting dinners that some estates offer in autumn occupy a category entirely their own.

The Landscape of Novara: From the Plain to the Mountain, Everything in Between

The province is, geographically speaking, a lesson in compression. To the south and east, the Po plain is flat in the way that only places shaped by water over centuries can be flat – vast, productive, somehow dramatic despite the absence of topography. The rice fields in particular do something remarkable to the light: flooded in spring and early summer, they reflect the sky back at itself across thousands of hectares, giving the entire plain an unearthly, shimmering quality that no photograph quite captures and that visitors from drier, hillier parts of Europe find quietly extraordinary.

Moving north, the landscape shifts through the Colline Novaresi – a series of low, vine-covered hills producing wines that deserve considerably more international recognition than they currently receive – before the terrain grows more serious as it approaches the Ossola valleys and the foothills of Monte Rosa. This is Alpine country, with proper mountain villages, chestnut forests, and the clean air that comes with elevation. Lago d’Orta, tucked into the western hills, is arguably the province’s most beautiful asset: smaller and less trafficked than Lago Maggiore, with the island of San Giulio sitting at its centre like something from a medieval illustration. The eastern edge of the province borders Lago Maggiore itself, giving access to those shores without the corresponding crowds.

Things to Do in Novara: More Than Enough to Justify the Journey

The obvious starting point is Novara city itself, which rewards a half-day of proper attention. The Basilica di San Gaudenzio, topped by Alessandro Antonelli’s extraordinary dome – completed in 1888 and still the most dramatic thing on the skyline – is one of those buildings that stops the conversation. The historic centre has the proportions of a city that was important for a very long time without ever becoming too large to navigate pleasantly. The Egyptian Museum in Novara is a genuine surprise: an institution of real quality in a town that tourists from outside Italy rarely think to investigate.

On the lake, boat trips around Lago d’Orta and the obligatory visit to the island of San Giulio (population: a small community of Benedictine nuns, and nobody else) provide a kind of quiet that is genuinely restorative. The Sacro Monte di Orta – a UNESCO World Heritage site comprising a series of Renaissance chapels built across a wooded hillside – is the kind of place that takes you by surprise with its quality and its near-total absence of crowds. Wine estate visits in the Colline Novaresi can be arranged with the kind of intimacy that more famous wine regions charge considerably for. And the thermal baths at Acqui Terme – roughly 90 minutes south – make a compelling day trip.

Adventure and Active Pursuits: The Province Has Altitude as Well as Attitude

The northern section of the province, where the terrain rises toward the Alps, provides the infrastructure for serious outdoor activity. Hiking trails in the Ossola valleys range from gentle half-day routes through chestnut woodland to multi-day treks on paths that connect village to village with the kind of waymarking that suggests someone has been walking these routes for several hundred years. Cycling is excellent across most of the province – the rice plain routes are flat and quiet, while the Colline Novaresi offer more demanding climbs with correspondingly satisfying descents and views. Mountain biking options multiply as you head north.

Lago d’Orta and the neighbouring shores of Lago Maggiore support kayaking, stand-up paddleboarding and sailing – the latter particularly on Maggiore, where the wind patterns are well understood by the local clubs that offer lessons and hire. In winter, the proximity of Monte Rosa and the Ossola valleys means that skiing is genuinely viable, with Macugnaga and the Alagna Valsesia area (just over the provincial boundary but easily reached) offering alternatives to the better-known resorts at a fraction of the January booking frenzy. Rock climbing, via ferrata and paragliding complete a picture that rewards guests who prefer their luxury with a side of exertion.

Novara for Families: Space, Safety and the Kind of Ease That Matters

Families arrive in the Province of Novara and tend to relax fairly quickly. The pace is gentler than the major tourist cities, the roads are manageable, and the Italian cultural disposition toward children – genuinely warm rather than the performative version – means that small people are welcomed rather than tolerated in restaurants, markets and most public spaces. Having a private villa here rather than a hotel dramatically changes the family experience: the pool becomes the social centre of the day, nobody has to negotiate what time the children need to be quiet, and the logistics of feeding fussy eaters can be handled on your own terms with ingredients from the local market.

The landscapes are gentle enough for families with young children – the lake shore, the rice field walks, the boat trips – while offering enough variety for teenagers who require stimulation beyond the purely scenic. The Sacro Monte at Orta and the museums and piazzas of Novara city are educational without requiring any effort to frame that way. The thermal pools at regional spa facilities are genuinely enjoyed by older children. And the rhythm of the Piedmontese day – long lunches, a proper afternoon pause, early evening gelato – suits families considerably better than the relentless schedule that city tourism tends to impose.

History and Culture in Depth: A Province That Has Seen Quite a Lot

The history of Novara is longer and more eventful than its current quietude suggests. The city was a significant Roman settlement, then a Lombard stronghold, then a medieval free commune, then a contested territory that passed through the hands of the Visconti, the Sforza, the Spanish and the Habsburgs before ending up in the orbit of Savoy and, eventually, a unified Italy. The Battle of Novara in 1849 – at which the Piedmontese army was defeated by Austria, leading to the abdication of Carlo Alberto – was one of the pivotal moments in the Risorgimento, and its echoes can be followed through the province’s museums and monuments with some rewarding context.

The Romanesque and medieval heritage is particularly strong: the Baptistery of Novara is among the oldest surviving Christian buildings in northern Italy, and the churches of the historic centre contain works that a serious art traveller will want time for. The Sacro Monte pilgrim routes – not just at Orta but across the wider Piedmontese network, several of which are accessible from Novara – represent a distinctive form of Counter-Reformation religious art spread across the landscape, entirely unlike anything produced in comparable periods elsewhere in Europe. Local festivals, particularly the autumn harvest and truffle celebrations, connect the cultural calendar directly to the land in ways that feel genuinely rooted rather than staged for visitors.

Shopping in Novara: Local, Specific and Considerably Better Than a Souvenir Magnet

The most satisfying purchases in the Province of Novara are the ones you can eat or drink. Carnaroli rice – grown here, packaged here, and vastly superior to what ends up in supermarkets elsewhere – is the obvious candidate. Local wines from the Ghemme and Boca denominations travel well and give enormous pleasure to people who haven’t encountered them before, which includes most people who drink wine seriously. Aged local cheeses, particularly the Grana Padano produced in this zone, and the various cured meats of the Piedmontese tradition make excellent additions to any case of wine you are sending home.

Novara city itself has a well-preserved historic centre with independent food shops, wine merchants and the occasional clothing boutique that reflects northern Italian taste without the northern Italian price tags of the major cities. The Saturday market is the best single shopping occasion the province offers – agricultural producers, textile merchants and food stalls operating with the businesslike efficiency of people who have been doing this for generations. The Lago d’Orta area has developed a modest artisan craft scene, and the village of Orta San Giulio in particular rewards a browse through its small shops and galleries on a weekday morning before the day-trippers arrive from the Milanese commuter belt. (They tend to arrive quite early. Worth knowing.)

Practical Matters: What You Actually Need to Know Before You Go

The Province of Novara operates on the euro, and while cards are increasingly accepted across restaurants and shops, carrying some cash remains sensible for markets, smaller trattorias and any transaction that might otherwise involve a lengthy conversation about the card machine. Italian is the language throughout; English is spoken in hotels, villa management contexts and tourist-facing businesses, but a few words of Italian are met with disproportionate warmth and are genuinely worth the effort.

The best time to visit depends, as it always does, on what you want. May and June bring the rice field flooding and some of the most extraordinary light in the region, with temperatures comfortable for both activity and sitting on a terrace with wine. July and August are warm and busy around the lakes – hot rather than uncomfortable, though August sees Italians on holiday en masse, which has implications for restaurant bookings and road traffic. September and October are many people’s preference: truffle season begins, the vendemmia brings the vineyards to life, and the quality of the days – warm, clear, slightly golden – is difficult to argue with. Winter is cold and quiet, with the compensations of excellent food, empty museums and the proximity of the ski areas.

Safety presents no particular concern beyond standard urban awareness in the city centre. Tipping is not obligatory but rounding up a bill or leaving a few euros on the table after a good meal is appreciated and appropriate. Dress modestly when visiting churches – a consideration in a province where the religious heritage is both significant and actively used.

Why a Private Villa in Novara Is the Way to Actually Experience This Province

The Province of Novara is not a destination that benefits from being experienced at hotel pace. The pleasures here are diffuse and unhurried – a wine estate in the morning, the lake in the afternoon, a long dinner that extends into the evening without anyone requiring the table back. A private villa gives you a base that matches the rhythm of the place: somewhere to return to at any hour, to swim before the day starts, to eat breakfast overlooking the hills with no particular schedule pressing on the morning.

For families and groups, the villa proposition is compelling in ways that no hotel room configuration can replicate. Multiple bedrooms, a shared kitchen, a private pool, a garden where children can exist without anyone managing them – these are not small considerations. For couples, the seclusion that a well-positioned villa affords – perhaps on a hillside in the Colline Novaresi, perhaps with a view across the rice plain at dusk – is the kind of privacy that a boutique hotel can gesture toward but not quite deliver. For remote workers, a villa with reliable connectivity and a working space that looks out onto the Italian countryside represents a proposition that the open-plan offices of the United Kingdom or the United States simply cannot compete with.

The wellness dimension deserves particular attention. Villas in this province frequently come with pools, gardens and outdoor spaces that encourage the kind of outdoor living – morning swims, afternoon rest, evening walks – that forms the basis of any genuinely restorative break. The combination of good food, clean air, moderate temperatures and the general unhurriedness of the province does the rest. Concierge services attached to quality villa rentals can arrange everything from private chef hire to vineyard visits, thermal spa bookings and guided hiking itineraries, meaning that the work of planning – which can itself be exhausting – is handled by people who actually know the terrain.

Excellence Luxury Villas offers a curated collection of private villa rentals in Province of Novara – ranging from intimate retreats for couples to substantial properties equipped for large groups and multi-generational families. Every property is selected for quality, character and the specific pleasures it enables. The province rewards those who give it proper time and proper attention. A villa is the most effective way to do both.