Borghi più belli d'Italia
Borghi più belli d'Italia in Apulia
12 towns
Apulia carries 12 of the Borghi più belli d'Italia towns we cover. They cluster in the Foggia, Bari, and Lecce provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Gravina in Puglia, Maruggio, and Monte Sant'Angelo. 9 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
Gravina in Puglia
Province: Bari · 350 m
Puglia's deepest gravina — a 42,700-resident Bari-province town built on the lip of a 100m-deep limestone canyon, with the 18th-c Ponte Acquedotto walkway across the gorge that James Bond crossed in No Time to Die, a network of rupestrian cave churches in the cliff face, and the four-signal BPB + Cittaslow + Via Francigena + Parco Nazionale combination.
Maruggio
Province: Taranto · 35 m
Salento's Knights of Malta borgo — a fortified Borgo più Bello on a low Ionian hill with 11 km of Bandiera Blu coast at Campomarino, Negroamaro and Primitivo vines pressing into the centro, and a unique commanderie history that made it the Order's southern Italian headquarters for 600 years.
Monte Sant'Angelo
Province: Foggia · 843 m
The Gargano peak at 843 meters where the Archangel Michael appeared in 490, the oldest western shrine to him, UNESCO since 2011.
Vico del Gargano
Province: Foggia · 445 m
A Gargano hill town at 445 meters with a Norman castle, a kiss alley, and DOP citrus groves stepping down to the Adriatic.
Cisternino
Province: Brindisi · 394 m
An Itria valley borgo on the southern Murgia at 394 meters, whitewashed, Cittaslow since 2003 and Cittaslow City of the Year in 2014.
Locorotondo
Province: Bari · 410 m
The round white town on the Itria valley ridge at 410 meters, with cummerse roofs the rest of Puglia does not have.
Otranto
Province: Lecce · 20 m
Italy's easternmost city, eighty kilometers from Albania, with a Norman mosaic floor and the bones of 813 martyrs in the cathedral.
Bovino
Province: Foggia · 646 m
A Daunian Mountains hill town at 646 meters above the Cervaro valley, Roman Vibinum, with a Norman-Swabian castle later turned into a Guevara ducal palace.
Pietramontecorvino
Province: Foggia · 456 m
A Subappennino Dauno village at 456 meters on a tufa spur with a 30-meter Norman-Angevin tower and houses carved into the rock.
Roseto Valfortore
Province: Foggia · 658 m
A Daunian Mountain stone village at 658 meters near the Fortore springs, named for the wild roses and known for black and white truffles.
Sammichele di Bari
Province: Bari · 280 m
A Murge town at 280 meters founded in 1609, anchored by the Caracciolo castle and famous for the zampina pork sausage.
Specchia
Province: Lecce · 130 m
A medieval Salento borgo on the Serra Magnone at 130 meters, named for the Messapian stone lookouts that once watched the coast.
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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.