Borghi più belli d'Italia
Borghi più belli d'Italia in Lazio
24 towns
Lazio carries 24 of the Borghi più belli d'Italia towns we cover. They cluster in the Roma, Rieti, and Viterbo provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Nemi, Acquapendente, and Ronciglione. 21 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
Nemi
Province: Roma · 521 m
The smallest comune in the Castelli Romani, perched at 521 meters above a volcanic crater lake the Romans called the mirror of Diana.
Acquapendente
Province: Viterbo · 420 m
The northernmost town in Lazio on the Via Francigena, at 420 meters above the Paglia, named in 964 for its waterfalls.
Ronciglione
Province: Viterbo · 441 m
A tufa-brick borgo above Lake Vico at 441 meters, fortified by the Prefects of Vico and crowned Borgo dei Borghi in 2023.
Subiaco
Province: Roma · 408 m
The Aniene valley town where Benedict spent three years in a cliff cave, and where Italy's first printed book appeared in 1465.
Sutri
Province: Viterbo · 291 m
An Etruscan and Roman town on a tuff spur, with a rock-cut amphitheater carved straight from the volcanic stone of the Cimini.
San Felice Circeo
Province: Latina · 100 m
A medieval borgo on the flank of Monte Circeo, the 540-meter promontory Homer made the home of Circe in the Odyssey.
Sperlonga
Province: Latina · 55 m
A whitewashed cliff town on Monte San Magno halfway between Rome and Naples, built above the sea grotto where Tiberius staged the Odyssey in marble.
Castel di Tora
Province: Rieti · 607 m
A village of 266 on Lago del Turano at 607 meters, with an eleventh-century polygonal tower and a ghost promontory called Antuni.
Castel Gandolfo
Province: Roma · 426 m
A papal town on the rim of Lake Albano's volcanic crater, summer residence of the popes since 1626 in the Castelli Romani.
Castro dei Volsci
Province: Frosinone · 385 m
A Ciociaria hilltop borgo at 385 meters in the Sacco valley, named for the pre-Roman Volsci and birthplace of actor Nino Manfredi.
Orvinio
Province: Rieti · 840 m
The highest borgo in the Monti Lucretili park at 840 meters, called Canemorto until 1863 and dominated by the Castello Malvezzi-Campeggi.
Vitorchiano
Province: Viterbo · 285 m
A peperino borgo built on a single volcanic boulder near Viterbo, and the only place outside Easter Island with a true Moai.
Amatrice
Province: Rieti · 955 m
A 955-meter Apennine town leveled by the 24 August 2016 earthquake, slowly rebuilding the streets that gave amatriciana its name.
Atina
Province: Frosinone · 500 m
A polygonal-walled town in the Val di Comino at the foot of the Mainarde, and the DOC that makes Cabernet in central Italy.
Bassano in Teverina
Province: Viterbo · 304 m
A tufa-spur borgo of 1,260 above the Tiber valley between Lazio and Umbria, with a clock tower that hides an eleventh-century animated bell tower.
Boville Ernica
Province: Frosinone · 450 m
A Ciociaria hilltop town with eighteen intact medieval towers and Giotto's only surviving mosaic, the Angelo del Navicella, in San Pietro Ispano.
Castelnuovo di Porto
Province: Roma · 250 m
A tufa-ridge borgo twenty-five kilometers north of Rome inside the Parco di Veio, dominated by the Rocca Colonna above the Tiber valley.
Collalto Sabino
Province: Rieti · 980 m
A 980-meter Sabine borgo dominated by a Barberini baronial castle, with a 360-degree panorama from the keep over the Gran Sasso, Terminillo and Maiella.
Percile
Province: Roma · 575 m
A 219-person medieval borgo at 575 meters in the Monti Lucretili park, with two karst lakes called Lagustelli hidden in the beech woods above.
Pico
Province: Frosinone · 220 m
Tommaso Landolfi's home town — a 2,634-resident Ciociaria borgo at 220m on the Monti Ausoni between Rome and Naples, with the Castello Baronale dei Boncompagni (now the Casa Museo Tommaso Landolfi for the eccentric 20th-c Italian fantastic-realism writer), a BPB-inscribed medieval centro, and the surrounding Monti Ausoni hiking + wild boar country.
Capranica Prenestina
Province: Roma · 915 m
A 915-meter ridge village on the Monti Prenestini east of Rome, with the Mentorella sanctuary at 1,018 meters above the Giovenzano valley.
Castel San Pietro Romano
Province: Roma · 763 m
A 763-meter hill village on Monte Ginestro above Palestrina, sitting on the acropolis of ancient Praeneste and inside the Colonna fortress walls.
Greccio
Province: Rieti · 705 m
A 705-meter borgo above the Rieti valley where Francis of Assisi staged the first living nativity scene in a cliff cave on Christmas Eve 1223.
Magliano Sabina
Province: Rieti · 222 m
A 222-meter Sabine town on a Tiber terrace facing Monte Soratte, cathedral seat of the Sabina diocese on the Lazio-Umbria border.
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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.