Anywhere Italy

Silence

The 10 quietest towns in Italy, by the numbers

The silence index scores every catalogued comune from the numbers alone: residents, people per square kilometre, drive time to the nearest airport hub, distance from the nearest big town, and whether a train reaches it. Higher means more silent. These are the 10 highest scores in the catalogue.

Silence is measurable. Not with a microphone, but with the numbers that predict it: how many people live there, how thinly they spread, how long the drive from the nearest airport, how far the nearest big town, whether a train can find it. We scored all thousand comuni in the catalogue on exactly that.

These ten came out on top. No opinion was consulted. If you disagree with the ranking, the numbers sit on each town's page and you can argue with them directly.

  1. 1.Alessandria del Carretto96 / 100 silenceCosenza · CalabriaThe highest village in the Pollino at 1,043 meters, the only Italian commune carrying its founder's full name, with a fir-tree ritual every 3 May.
  2. 2.Civitacampomarano95 / 100 silenceCampobasso · MoliseThe Molisan ghost-borgo that became Italy's most ambitious street-art village — 302 residents and 30+ large-format murals by international artists (Bifido, Hitnes, Alice Pasquini, Borondo, Vesod) painted across the abandoned house-walls of the centro storico during the annual CVTà Street Fest since 2016, anchored by the 11th-c Castello Angioino on a tufa spur.
  3. 3.Madesimo95 / 100 silenceSondrio · LombardyA ski village at 1,550 meters at the head of Valle Spluga, with lifts to 2,880 meters and the Canalone off-piste descent.
  4. 4.Santo Stefano di Sessanio95 / 100 silenceL'Aquila · AbruzzoA Medici outpost at 1,250 meters on the southern edge of Campo Imperatore, restored building by building since 1999 into Italy's first scattered hotel.
  5. 5.Capraia Isola94 / 100 silenceLivorno · TuscanyA volcanic island of 370 residents and one village, the third largest of the Tuscan Archipelago, a penal colony from 1873 to 1986 and a national park since.

The slow-trip planner

Plan a slow trip across the towns travelers skip.

Answer five questions. We will shape a geographically coherent slow trip from the 1,000 Italian towns most travelers skip. Yours to save and share.

Plan your trip
  1. 6.Aieta94 / 100 silenceCosenza · CalabriaAn eagle's-nest village in the western Pollino, with one of the few sixteenth-century Renaissance palazzi standing in Calabria.
  2. 7.Macugnaga94 / 100 silenceVerbano-Cusio-Ossola · PiedmontA Walser village at 1,327 meters at the foot of the east wall of Monte Rosa, founded in the 13th century by colonists from Valais.
  3. 8.Cappadocia94 / 100 silenceL'Aquila · AbruzzoItaly's Cappadocia — a 575-resident Marsican borgo at 1,102m in Abruzzo's western mountains, with the spectacular Grotte di Pietrasecca karst cave system (the longest in the central Apennines), Borgo Autentico + Città delle Grotte signals, and a name that does cause genuine reservations for travellers expecting Turkey's hot-air balloon landscape.
  4. 9.Monteviasco94 / 100 silenceVarese · LombardyA near-abandoned mountain frazione of Curiglia con Monteviasco at 928 metres above the Veddasca valley — historically reached only by an aerial cable-car since 1989 (since suspended) or a 1,400-step stone staircase, with permanent population in the single digits.
  5. 10.La Thuile94 / 100 silenceAosta Valley · Aosta ValleyItaly's gateway to the Petit Saint-Bernard pass — a 1,441m alpine village under Mont Blanc with the Espace San Bernardo ski domain straddling the French border (152 km of pistes shared with La Rosière), the Rutor glacier and its tiered waterfalls behind it, and a Roman-Salassi history that goes back two millennia.

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

By subscribing you agree to Substack’s Terms of Use, our Privacy Policy and our Information collection notice.

Keep browsing

Five more ways into the catalogue

Subscribe — free

Get the best guides on hidden Italian towns.

One letter on Sundays. The week’s town, with the photo, the food, the festa. Free, by Peter & Sophia from Pietrasanta.

By subscribing you agree to Substack’s Terms of Use, our Privacy Policy and our Information collection notice.

Substack sends a confirmation link to your inbox. The signup finishes when it’s clicked.

From elsewhere in Italy

Five more towns to discover