Borghi più belli d'Italia
Borghi più belli d'Italia in Calabria
16 towns
Calabria carries 16 of the Borghi più belli d'Italia towns we cover. They cluster in the Cosenza, Reggio di Calabria, and Crotone provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Altomonte, Gerace, and Bova. 13 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
Altomonte
Province: Cosenza · 455 m
The highest Gothic-Angevin church in Calabria, a Simone Martini panel commissioned in 1326, and a hill of 455 meters in the Esaro valley.
Gerace
Province: Reggio di Calabria · 470 m
A 470-meter conglomerate rock above Locri, founded by Locri Epizefiri refugees, with Calabria's largest cathedral on Roman columns from Magna Graecia temples.
Bova
Province: Reggio di Calabria · 820 m
The capital of the Bovesìa — a 416-resident Aspromonte hilltop borgo at 820m that is the cultural centre of the Grecanic minority, where the Calabrian-Greek dialect (a direct descendant of Byzantine-era Greek) is still spoken by elders, with the triple Borghi più belli + Bandiera Arancione + Parco Nazionale dell'Aspromonte signal.
Morano Calabro
Province: Cosenza · 694 m
A conical hill of stone houses stacked under a Norman-Swabian castle at the southern gate of the Pollino, called Italy's nativity village.
San Nicola Arcella
Province: Cosenza · 110 m
A cliff village above the Tyrrhenian Riviera dei Cedri, where the Arco Magno sea arch fronts a cove only reachable on foot or by boat.
Trebisacce
Province: Cosenza · 73 m
A Bronze Age plateau above the Ionian Gulf of Taranto whose name comes from the Greek for small table, with a Byzantine mother church below.
Tropea
Province: Vibo Valentia · 50 m
Cliff town on a tufa headland over the Tyrrhenian Coast of the Gods, with a Norman monastery on a sea rock.
Aieta
Province: Cosenza · 524 m
An eagle's-nest village in the western Pollino, with one of the few sixteenth-century Renaissance palazzi standing in Calabria.
Fiumefreddo Bruzio
Province: Cosenza · 220 m
A Tyrrhenian hill town under Monte Cocuzzo, with a thirteenth-century castle frescoed in the 1990s by the Sicilian painter Salvatore Fiume.
Oriolo
Province: Cosenza · 450 m
A medieval borgo on a sandstone outcrop at 450 meters, on the eastern slopes of Pollino, twenty kilometers from the Ionian coast.
Rocca Imperiale
Province: Cosenza · 210 m
Frederick 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.
Santa Severina
Province: Crotone · 326 m
A tufa-rock stone ship at 326 meters between the Sila and the Ionian, holding the only Byzantine baptistery still standing in Calabria.
Aiello Calabro
Province: Cosenza · 502 m
A hilltop borgo at 502 meters in the Tyrrhenian hinterland of Cosenza, ruled for two centuries by the Cybo-Malaspina from Massa Carrara.
Badolato
Province: Catanzaro · 240 m
A medieval borgo of thirteen churches at 240 meters above the Ionian, which took in 350 Kurdish refugees in 1997 and started its own slow rebirth.
Caccuri
Province: Crotone · 646 m
A 646-meter Presila borgo dominated by a sixth-century Byzantine castle with a cylindrical tower built in 1882, birthplace of Renaissance statesman Cicco Simonetta.
Stilo
Province: Reggio di Calabria · 400 m
A Byzantine hilltown below Monte Consolino, home to the tenth-century Cattolica and the legendary inspiration for Campanella's City of the Sun.
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