Coast and lakes
10 seaside towns that face east: the sunrise coast of the Adriatic
Adriatic coastal comuni in the catalogue, where the sea light comes in the morning. 10 towns shown, ranked by recognitions held.
The Adriatic coast faces the sunrise, which changes its habits: fishing boats leave in the dark, the beach fills early, the evening belongs to the piazza rather than the shore.
These are the catalogue's Adriatic comuni, ranked by the recognitions they hold. The light at seven in the morning is the argument.
- 1.Roseto Capo Spulico1,887 residentsCosenza · CalabriaA Frederician castle on a rock above the Ionian, a former Sybaris satellite city founded in the seventh century BC, Templar legend included.
- 2.Vieste13,405 residentsFoggia · ApuliaThe Gargano headland of whitewashed alleys on a white limestone cliff, with the Pizzomunno sea stack standing 26 meters offshore.
- 3.Senigallia44,019 residentsAncona · MarcheThirteen kilometers of fine sand on the Adriatic that earned the Spiaggia di Velluto name, hometown of photographer Mario Giacomelli and chef Mauro Uliassi.
- 4.Corigliano-Rossano74,066 residentsCosenza · CalabriaThe Sibari plain city merged in 2018, home of the UNESCO-listed sixth-century Codex Purpureus and the 1731 Amarelli liquorice dynasty.
- 5.Peschici4,283 residentsFoggia · ApuliaA Gargano cliff-top village above the Adriatic with a Norman castle of 1023, white houses spilling toward the sea and trabucchi on the headlands.
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- 6.Gradara4,889 residentsPesaro e Urbino · MarcheThe walled hill borgo at 142 meters above the Adriatic where Dante set the deaths of Paolo and Francesca, with one of Italy's best-preserved castles.
- 7.Melendugno10,045 residentsLecce · ApuliaSalento's archaeological-beach capital — a 10,000-resident Lecce-province comune covering 17 km of Adriatic coast with three Bandiera Blu beaches (Torre dell'Orso, San Foca, Sant'Andrea), the Grotta della Poesia karst pool (one of the world's most beautiful natural pools per National Geographic), and the Bronze-Age-to-Messapian-to-medieval Roca Vecchia archaeological site.
- 8.Mondolfo14,252 residentsPesaro e Urbino · MarcheA walled hill borgo at 144 meters above the Adriatic, with the frazione of Marotta and its Bandiera Blu beach below.
- 9.Pineto14,571 residentsTeramo · AbruzzoA planned twentieth-century beach town named for D'Annunzio's poem, with the sixteenth-century Cerrano tower anchoring Abruzzo's first marine protected area.
- 10.Grottammare15,814 residentsAscoli Piceno · MarcheA double town on the Riviera delle Palme, with a palm-lined seafront and the medieval Paese Alto where Pope Sixtus V was born.
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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From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Putignano
Province: Bari
Europe's longest-running carnival — Putignano Carnevale has run continuously since 1394, with 631 years of cartapesta papier-mâché floats, a 26,000-resident Murgia town on the Bari–Lecce plateau, and the Grotta del Trullo karst cave inside the centro.
Pistoia
Province: Pistoia
Italy's nursery capital and the medieval Tuscan rival that gave its name to the pistol — a quietly extraordinary centro storico of zebra-striped Romanesque churches, Andrea della Robbia's polychrome frieze on the Ospedale del Ceppo, and Italy's Capital of Culture 2017, all 30 minutes from Florence by train.
Tropea
Province: Vibo Valentia
Cliff town on a tufa headland over the Tyrrhenian Coast of the Gods, with a Norman monastery on a sea rock.
Caldes
Province: Trento
A 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.
Cantiano
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
A border borgo at 374 meters under Monte Catria on the old Via Flaminia, known for the Good Friday Turba and the sour-cherry visciola harvest.