Palaeontologists know this corner of the Asti country well: so many fossils have been found here that the span between the end of the Tertiary and the start of the Quaternary is called the Villafranchian. Most remains are plants, but the sandier layers give up skeletons of rhinoceros, cattle and deer, and mastodon tusks too, now at the university of Turin.
The town as it stands was someone else\u0027s decision: in 1275 Asti gathered the people of several scattered villages into one place, to guard the western side of its territory. In the sixteenth century, with the little ice age, it moved again and climbed the hill where it stands now: nothing of the medieval village is left.
No events match these filters.
📅 Every year, on 18 August; the first weekend of September the Vininvilla, wine and bagna freida festival
Villafranca d'Asti celebrates Saint Helena on 18 August, in the church dedicated to her; the first weekend of September brings the «Vininvilla», Wine and Bagna Freida Festival, an oenological competition and market of DOC and DOCG wines from the Asti area selected by ONAV.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Villafranca d'Asti, but an easy day trip away.
