🟠Bandiera Arancione in Emilia-Romagna

Brisighella

Province: Ravenna · 115 m

A Lamone-valley borgo at 115 meters under three selenite hills crowned by a fortress, a clock tower, and a sanctuary.

Bagno di Romagna

Province: Forlì-Cesena · 491 m

A 491-meter thermal town at the head of the Savio valley, drawing on springs that have run at 47 degrees since Roman times.

Bobbio

Province: Piacenza · 272 m

A 272-meter Trebbia-valley town built around the abbey Saint Columbanus founded in 614, named Borgo dei Borghi by RAI in 2019.

Busseto

Province: Parma · 40 m

• 🍖Culatello di Zibello DOP

A 40-meter Bassa Parmense town where Giuseppe Verdi grew up, with a 300-seat opera house in the Rocca he refused to enter.

Castell'Arquato

Province: Piacenza · 224 m

A 224-meter hilltop borgo in the Val d'Arda, kept intact since the tenth century and crowned by Luchino Visconti's 1342 fortress.

Castelvetro di Modena

Province: Modena · 152 m

A 152-meter hill borgo south of Modena whose checkerboard piazza sits above the slopes that grow Lambrusco Grasparossa.

Dozza

Province: Bologna · 190 m

A 190-meter painted borgo above the Sellustra valley, where contemporary artists have repainted the house walls every two years since 1960.

Fiumalbo

Province: Modena · 935 m

A 935-meter stone village in the Modenese Apennines on the Tuscan border, at the confluence of two rivers under Monte Cimone.

Fontanellato

Province: Parma · 45 m

A Parma-plain town built around the Rocca Sanvitale, the moated fortress with Parmigianino's 1524 fresco of Diana and Actaeon.

Montefiore Conca

Province: Rimini · 385 m

A 385-meter Malatesta hilltop above the Conca valley, dominated by a fourteenth-century fortress that was once a summer residence of the lords of Rimini.

Portico e San Benedetto

Province: Forlì-Cesena · 309 m

A three-tier medieval borgo at 309 meters on the Montone river, capital of Florence's Romagna territories from 1386.

Premilcuore

Province: Forlì-Cesena · 459 m

A 459-meter walled borgo on the Rabbi river, an entry point to the Foreste Casentinesi from the Romagna side.

San Leo

Province: Rimini · 583 m

Italy's most dramatic hilltop fortress town — a 2,820-resident borgo on a vertical 583m limestone outcrop in the Montefeltro, 35 km from Rimini, with the Renaissance Forte di San Leo (where Cagliostro was imprisoned and died in 1795), the 9th-c Pieve, the 12th-c Duomo, and the Romagna/Marche frontier panorama from every wall.

Sant'Agata Feltria

Province: Rimini · 607 m

A 607-meter Montefeltro borgo crowned by the Rocca Fregoso on the Sasso del Lupo, host of the national white truffle fair since 1985.

Vernasca

Province: Piacenza · 457 m

A Val d'Arda commune in the Piacenza Apennines, holding the walled village of Vigoleno and one of the most compact castled borghi in Emilia.

Verucchio

Province: Rimini · 330 m

A spur over the lower Marecchia valley, cradle of the Villanovan civilization and birthplace of the Malatesta lordship of Romagna.

Castrocaro Terme e Terra del Sole

Province: Forlì-Cesena · 68 m

A pairing of two towns: a ninth-century fortress at Castrocaro and Cosimo I de' Medici's planned Renaissance fortress of Terra del Sole, founded 1564.

Fanano

Province: Modena · 640 m

A 640-meter stone-working town in the Modenese Apennines, set among Monte Cimone, Libro Aperto and the upper Frignano peaks.

Longiano

Province: Forlì-Cesena · 179 m

A 179-meter Malatesta borgo on the hills between Cesena and Rimini, holding the Tito Balestra collection inside the family castle.

Pennabilli

Province: Rimini · 629 m

A 629-meter Montefeltro borgo between the Roccione and the Rupe, rebuilt as a poet's open-air museum by Tonino Guerra after 1989.

Sestola

Province: Modena · 1,020 m

A 1,020-meter Apennine town under Monte Cimone, with a Lombard-era castle above and the largest ski domain of central Italy on the slopes.