Piedmont
Flanked by the snow-capped alps to the north and the thin strip of province called Liguria to the south, Piedmont draws from many French and Swiss influences while maintaining its uniquely Italian heritage. Though most of the region is countryside, Piemonte is also home to Turin (famous for the shroud and home to Fiat).
Piedmont is a food lover's paradise. Occupying a large area that borders on France and Switzerland, Piedmont is the ancient dominion of the Savoys, the ill-fated royal family who ruled Italy from the Unification in 1870 until abdication in 1946. But Piedmont is a world unto itself. Perhaps it was the thick fogs that often shroud its world-class vineyards - even giving their name, nebbiolo, to the region's premier grape - that cut it off from the rest of the peninsula. Certainly we can say that of the Alps, which loom so magnificently on the eastern and northern borders. Add to that the region's hopelessly picturesque lakes and hills (of which there are far more per square mile than in Tuscany), and you get a people who long ago learned to rely on their own small community for everything.