Bandiera Arancione
Bandiera Arancione in Liguria
13 towns
Liguria carries 13 of the Bandiera Arancione towns we cover. They cluster in the Imperia, La Spezia, and Savona provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Apricale, Badalucco, and Brugnato. 10 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
Apricale
Province: Imperia · 273 m
A medieval hill village in the Nervia Valley, named for the Latin apricus, sunny, with a tenth-century castle shaped like a lizard on the rock.
Badalucco
Province: Imperia · 179 m
A medieval village wrapped in a bend of the Argentina torrent, with murals on its caruggi and a Slow Food bean on its terraces.
Brugnato
Province: La Spezia · 115 m
The medieval ecclesiastical capital of the Val di Vara, seat of a diocese from 1133 to 1820, with a co-cathedral built over a Columban monastery.
Castelnuovo Magra
Province: La Spezia · 188 m
A ridge village on the Liguria-Tuscany border where Dante Alighieri signed the 1306 Peace of Castelnuovo on behalf of the Malaspina marquises.
Perinaldo
Province: Imperia · 572 m
A ridge village at 572 meters above the Val Nervia, birthplace of Giovanni Domenico Cassini and home to a working astronomical observatory in his name.
Triora
Province: Imperia · 776 m
The witches' village at 776 meters in the upper Valle Argentina, where the Inquisition put around 200 women on trial between 1587 and 1589.
Castelvecchio di Rocca Barbena
Province: Savona · 420 m
A stone village of 130 residents at 420 meters in the Val Neva, built into the southern foot of Rocca Barbena at 1,142 meters.
Dolceacqua
Province: Imperia · 51 m
A two-banked medieval village in the Val Nervia split by a single-arch bridge from 1400, the one Monet came to paint in 1884.
Seborga
Province: Imperia · 517 m
A hilltop village at 517 meters above Bordighera that calls itself a principality, 276 residents, its own coins and stamps since 1963.
Toirano
Province: Savona · 35 m
A medieval village at the mouth of the Val Varatella, four kilometers inland from Loano, with karst caves holding 14,000-year-old human footprints.
Varese Ligure
Province: La Spezia · 358 m
The Val di Vara's medieval seat at 358 meters, the first European municipality with ISO 14001 certification, anchor of Italy's largest organic district.
Santo Stefano d'Aveto
Province: Genova · 1,012 m
Liguria's highest commune at 1,012 meters in the Ligurian-Emilian Apennines, with a Malaspina-Doria castle and the only ski resort in the region.
Sassello
Province: Savona · 381 m
A baroque borgo at 381 meters in the Parco del Beigua, where Geltrude Rossi invented the soft amaretto in 1860.
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.
Substack sends a confirmation link to your inbox. The signup finishes when it’s clicked.
From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Pieve di Soligo
Province: Treviso
The market town between the Soligo and Lierza rivers in the Prosecco UNESCO zone, birthplace of the twentieth-century poet Andrea Zanzotto.
Vallefoglia
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
A 2014 merger commune at 295 meters in the Foglia valley, born from Colbordolo, birthplace of Raffaello's father, and Sant'Angelo in Lizzola.
Abano Terme
Province: Padova
Europe's oldest thermal town on the Euganean Hills' eastern slope, where 80°C bromo-iodine springs have been drawing bathers since the eighth century BC.
Bosa
Province: Oristano
A colour-washed riverside town on Sardinia's only navigable river, with a Malaspina castle on the hill and the tanneries of Sas Conzas along the Temo.
Castagnole delle Lanze
Province: Asti
An Asti hill town at 298 meters between Langhe and Monferrato, with two Baroque churches and a nineteenth-century astronomical tower.