Bandiera Arancione
Bandiera Arancione in Sardinia
6 towns
Sardinia carries 6 of the Bandiera Arancione towns we cover. They cluster in the Nuoro, Sassari, and Sud Sardegna provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Sardara, Oliena, and Galtellì. 3 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
Sardara
Province: Sud Sardegna · 163 m
A Campidano thermal town where Nuragic well-temples, Roman Aquae Neapolitanae and a hilltop Arborea castle share the same hot springs.
Oliena
Province: Nuoro · 380 m
A Supramonte village at the foot of Monte Corrasi, source of Cannonau Nepente, base camp for Tiscali and the Lanaitto valley.
Galtellì
Province: Nuoro · 49 m
Grazia Deledda's 'Canne al vento' set — a 2,354-resident Baronia borgo under the Monte Tuttavista in Sardinia's northeast, with the triple Borghi Autentici + Bandiera Arancione + Città del Vino signal, the 11th-c Cattedrale di San Pietro (Sardinia's first), and the entire centro recognised as the Parco Letterario Grazia Deledda for being the literal setting of her 1913 Nobel-trajectory novel.
Tempio Pausania
Province: Sassari · 566 m
The granite capital of Gallura at the foot of Monte Limbara, known for cork, Vermentino DOCG and the largest Carnival in northern Sardinia.
Aggius
Province: Sassari · 514 m
A Gallura granite village at 514 meters under the Monti di Aggius, with the largest ethnographic museum in Sardegna and three centuries of bandit history.
Gavoi
Province: Nuoro · 777 m
A 777-meter Barbagia hilltop village above Lake Gusana with a Bandiera Arancione of the Touring Club, the country's most-attended summer literary festival (L'Isola delle Storie), and the PDO Fiore Sardo pecorino made here for at least three centuries.
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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.