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10 winter sea towns

Coastal comuni whose visiting calendar keeps December through February open. 10 towns shown, ranked by recognitions held.

The Mediterranean does not close in December, only its beach clubs do. A winter sea town offers the original quiet: storm watching, fish at half the summer price, walks on sand that shows only your footprints.

These coastal comuni keep December through February open in our calendar. Ranked by recognitions held.

  1. 1.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.
  2. 2.Maruggio5,250 residentsTaranto · ApuliaSalento's Knights of Malta borgo — a fortified Borgo più Bello on a low Ionian hill with 11 km of Bandiera Blu coast at Campomarino, Negroamaro and Primitivo vines pressing into the centro, and a unique commanderie history that made it the Order's southern Italian headquarters for 600 years.
  3. 3.Livorno152,914 residentsLivorno · TuscanyTuscany's working port and Medici-planned 'New City' — a 16th-century planned town built on reclaimed coast, with a Venice-like canal quarter, the Quattro Mori monument, and a 1.5-km seafront promenade that locals call the world's most beautiful balcony.
  4. 4.Diano7,794 residentsImperia · LiguriaA twin destination on the Riviera dei Fiori — the medieval hilltop borgo of Diano Castello above and the palm-fronted beach resort of Diano Marina below — sharing one Bay of Diano, one Taggiasca olive valley, and the longest Bandiera Blu beach in western Liguria.
  5. 5.Menfi11,814 residentsAgrigento · SicilySicily's triple-signal western coast town — 11,800 residents on a low ridge above 9 km of Bandiera Blu sand at Porto Palo, with the Federico II tower, the Cantine Settesoli cooperative (Italy's largest by volume, 2,000 grower-members), and the rare Bandiera Blu + Città del Vino + Città dell'Olio combination.

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  1. 6.VernazzaVernazza729 residentsLa Spezia · LiguriaThe middle village of the Cinque Terre, the only one with a natural harbor, buried under four meters of mud in October 2011.
  2. 7.Borgio Verezzi2,048 residentsSavona · LiguriaTwo villages joined under one comune in 1933: Borgio on the Bandiera Blu beach and Verezzi at 200 meters on the pink-stone hill above.
  3. 8.Rocca Imperiale3,204 residentsCosenza · CalabriaFrederick II's Hohenstaufen fortress at the Calabria–Basilicata border — a Borgo più Bello d'Italia perched on a hill above the Ionian coast, with the 1225 castello at the summit, a Bandiera Blu beach at Rocca Imperiale Marina below, and the locally-grown limone di Rocca Imperiale IGP scenting the orchards.
  4. 9.Celle Ligure4,873 residentsSavona · LiguriaA Riviera di Ponente beach town with kilns firing since the 1600s and a Lucio Fontana ceramic on the parish church façade.
  5. 10.CamogliCamogli4,977 residentsGenova · LiguriaA fishing village on the Golfo Paradiso whose nineteenth-century fleet of a thousand white sails made it Italy's third maritime power in the Mediterranean.

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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