Rice lands between Piedmont and Lombardy

I am Giulia, a tour guide, journalist, mom, and a lover of my rice paddy land.Surrounding the city of Novara is the agricultural rice-growing plain, part of a larger area that, together with rice fields in the neighboring provinces of Vercelli and Pavia, produces about 60 percent of Europe's rice. These are the Novara rice lands! They are lands that change from season to season, creating beautiful landscapes and ecosystems. In spring, the flooding of rice fields at planting time forms the famous checkered sea. In summer, on the other hand, the bright green expanses lead to the flowering of rice and the formation of grains. Then there is autumn, with the golden paddies and harvest time. Until winter, when the paddies rest, sometimes leaving room for rotation or just for the many spider ballooning spiders that cover the fields with a wafer-thin web of cobwebs. These are lands dotted with frescoed country oratories and ancient parish churches, with castles and abbeys. They are lands of historic farmsteads, of ancient mills and rice mills, of modern farms and rice mills. Lands of artistic and ethnographic museums, of places of memory of the epic of the mondine, of close encounters with unique characters, such as the architect Alessandro Antonelli or the writer Sebastiano Vassalli. So, in the shadow of the dome of San Gaudenzio in Novara, let's enjoy these lands of rice and enjoy paniscia and risotto, along with the many food and wine excellences of the area: an experience not to be missed!