Anywhere Italy

Recognitions

The 10 northernmost Borghi più belli d'Italia

Borghi più belli d'Italia comuni, ranked by latitude, north to south. 10 towns shown.

The Borghi più belli list thins as the latitude climbs, into valleys where the town names turn German and the recognition shares wall space with Tyrolean civic seals.

These are the northernmost members in our catalogue. Half sit above villages that were Austrian within living memory.

  1. 1.Sterzing46.91° NBolzano · Trentino-Alto Adige/SüdtirolA bilingual mining town at 948 metres on the Brenner road, where a 46-metre tower built in 1472 still divides the old town from the new.
  2. 2.Glurns46.66° NBolzano · Trentino-Alto Adige/SüdtirolThe smallest city in South Tyrol at 937 inhabitants, ringed by intact sixteenth-century walls in the Val Venosta near the Swiss border.
  3. 3.Sappada46.56° NUdine · Friuli-Venezia GiuliaA German-speaking alpine village at 1,250 meters near the source of the Piave, settled from East Tyrol in the eleventh century and Italian since 1852.
  4. 4.Kastelruth46.55° NBolzano · Trentino-Alto Adige/SüdtirolSouth Tyrolean gateway to the Alpe di Siusi at 1,060 metres, eighty-two-metre bell tower over the square, home of the Kastelruther Spatzen.
  5. 5.Rocca Pietore46.43° NBelluno · VenetoAn Agordino borgo at 1,143 meters under the Marmolada, where the Pettorina cuts a two-kilometer gorge through 100-meter rock walls.

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  1. 6.Caldes46.38° NTrento · Trentino-Alto Adige/SüdtirolA scattered Val di Sole commune on the Noce, six hamlets gathered around a thirteenth-century tower-house castle that once belonged to the Thun family.
  2. 7.Venzone46.35° NUdine · Friuli-Venezia GiuliaA 230-meter walled medieval town in the Tagliamento valley, leveled by the 1976 earthquake and rebuilt stone by stone, winner of Borgo dei Borghi 2017.
  3. 8.Ossana46.28° NTrento · Trentino-Alto Adige/SüdtirolA small Val di Sole borgo at the foot of a 25-metre stone keep, with Christmas nativity scenes filling its streets every December.
  4. 9.Frisanco46.23° NPordenone · Friuli-Venezia GiuliaA 572-resident commune in the Val Colvera whose frazione Poffabro, at 525 meters, became a model of Prealpine stone-and-wood vernacular architecture.
  5. 10.Pieve Tesino46.15° NTrento · Trentino-Alto Adige/SüdtirolThe birthplace of Alcide De Gasperi, founding father of the European Union, on a Trentino plateau of itinerant print-sellers and arboretum gardens.

We write about towns like these every Sunday, one town a week, with the photo, the food, the festa. Free, from Pietrasanta.

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