Bandiera Blu
Bandiera Blu in Sicily
4 towns
Sicily holds 4 Bandiera Blu sites inside our catalogue. They cluster in the Ragusa, Agrigento, and Messina provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Modica, Menfi, and Ragusa. 1 more town carries the mark alongside them.
Modica
Province: Ragusa · 296 m
A vertical Baroque city in the Hyblean Mountains, rebuilt from the 1693 earthquake and home to a chocolate recipe brought from Aztec Mexico.
Menfi
Province: Agrigento · 119 m
Sicily'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.
Ragusa
Province: Ragusa · 502 m
Two cities in one on a Hyblean plateau at 502 meters, Ragusa Ibla and Ragusa Superiore split by a ravine after 1693, both UNESCO Baroque.
Taormina
Province: Messina · 204 m
A 204-meter terrace above the Ionian with Etna on the southern horizon, a Greek-Roman theatre carved into the rock since the third century BC.
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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.