Train
10 Cittaslow towns you can reach by train
Cittaslow certified comuni with an active railway station. 10 towns shown, smallest first.
Cittaslow certification asks a town to slow down on purpose. Arriving by rail extends the idea to the journey: no parking, no toll ring, no argument with a ZTL camera.
Every comune here holds the certification and keeps an active station. Smallest first, because slowness scales down better than it scales up.
- 1.Controguerra2,192 residentsTeramo · AbruzzoA 267-meter hill village whose name is legal shorthand for a small Montepulciano and Trebbiano-Passerina DOC.
- 2.Bellano3,420 residentsLecco · LombardyAn eastern shore town where the Pioverna cut a gorge through fifteen million years of rock before reaching the water.
- 3.
Capalbio3,838 residentsGrosseto · TuscanyA walled hilltop borgo at 217 meters in the southern Maremma, donated to the Abbey of Tre Fontane by Charlemagne. - 4.Acqualagna4,151 residentsPesaro e Urbino · MarcheThe Italian truffle capital at 204 meters in the Metauro valley, supplying two-thirds of the country's white truffle harvest from the surrounding limestone woods.
- 5.Teglio4,515 residentsSondrio · LombardyA Valtellina hilltown at 856 metres whose Latin name gave the entire valley its own.
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- 6.Levanto5,140 residentsLa Spezia · LiguriaThe sixth Cinque Terre, a beach town and Cittaslow at the gateway of the national park, with a surf break and a striped Gothic church.
- 7.Caiazzo5,205 residentsCaserta · CampaniaA Cittaslow hill above the Volturno, turned by Franco Pepe's pizza into a destination for 800 covers a day in eighteenth-century rooms.
- 8.Borgo Val di Taro6,716 residentsParma · Emilia-RomagnaThe Cittaslow capital of the upper Taro valley at 411 meters, where the Fungo di Borgotaro IGP porcini has been protected since 1996.
- 9.Brisighella7,186 residentsRavenna · Emilia-RomagnaA Lamone-valley borgo at 115 meters under three selenite hills crowned by a fortress, a clock tower, and a sanctuary.
- 10.Chiavenna7,236 residentsSondrio · LombardyAn Alpine town at 333 meters on the Mera river, the historical Splügen Pass crossroads named for its key position and its rock-cellar crotti.
We write about towns like these every Sunday, one town a week, with the photo, the food, the festa. Free, from Pietrasanta.
From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Pozzuoli
Province: Napoli
A Roman port on a volcanic caldera, the Greek Dicearchia and the Roman Puteoli, where a market's columns first proved that the ground itself rises and falls.
Moena
Province: Trento
The largest village in the valley, Ladin-speaking, dressed in Ottoman costume for three days every August.
Polcenigo
Province: Pordenone
A 40-meter village at the foot of the Carnic Prealps where the Livenza rises, neighbour to the UNESCO Palù pile-dwelling site occupied since 4900 BC.
Pietra Ligure
Province: Savona
A Riviera di Ponente town named after the rock castle above its center, known today for one of the largest triennial flower carpets in Europe.
Ponte di Legno
Province: Brescia
The uppermost commune in the province, 1,257 meters up, where two streams meet under the Adamello range to form a river.