NOVARA , twenty minutes further down the train line towards Milan, makes for a more elegant, unhurried stopover than Vercelli, its main street, Corso Cavour , neatly paved with half-moon cobbles and lined with pasticcerie and old-fashioned tearooms. That said, there's not much left of historic Novara: the medieval Broletto houses an open-air cinema in summer, and the Duomo is an overblown Neoclassical creation which dwarfs all around to Lilliputian proportions; inside are bits and pieces from earlier churches - a fifth-century Baptistry with tenth-century frescoes of the Apocalypse, and a frescoed twelfth-century chapel - both open only in the morning. A couple of blocks north, the weird three-tiered dome of the church of San Gaudenzio with its syringe-like spire dominates the whole town. It was built by Antonelli, a nineteenth-century architect responsible for a similar monstrosity, the Mole in Turin.

Novara's tourist office is centrally placed at Piazza Matteotti 1 (Mon-Thurs 8am-2.15pm & 3.30-6pm, Fri 8am-2.15pm). The cheapest hotel is the Cristallo on Largo Cantelli 7 (tel 0321.452.681; L60,000-90,000/30.99-46.48), though you might prefer to splash out on a little more comfort at the Garden , at Corso Garibaldi 25 (tel 0321.625.094; L90,000-120,000/46.48-61.98). There's a reasonable pizzeria , Le Tre Lanterne , at Via dei Tornielli 1, just off Piazza Gramsci at the end of Corso Cavour.