🥐Città del Pane

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.

Matera

Province: Matera · 401 m

Cave dwellings carved into limestone since the Paleolithic, called the shame of Italy in the 1950s and made European Capital of Culture in 2019.

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.

Cerchiara di Calabria

Province: Cosenza · 650 m

A Città del Pane at 650 meters under Mount Sellaro, with a rock sanctuary at 1,015 meters and a sulphurous Cave of the Nymphs feeding the thermal springs.

Padula

Province: Salerno · 699 m

A hill town at 699 meters above the Vallo di Diano, holding the Certosa di San Lorenzo and the world's largest cloister.

Busseto

Province: Parma · 40 m

• 🍖Culatello di Zibello DOP

A 40-meter Bassa Parmense town where Giuseppe Verdi grew up, with a 300-seat opera house in the Rocca he refused to enter.

Ferrara

Province: Ferrara · 9 m

The first modern Renaissance city — Biagio Rossetti's 1492 'Addizione Erculea' was Europe's first scientifically planned urban expansion, and the moated brick Castello Estense, the diamond-faceted Palazzo dei Diamanti, and 9 km of intact medieval walls all sit inside a UNESCO-inscribed centro storico you can cycle end-to-end in 20 minutes.

Canale Monterano

Province: Roma · 376 m

A hilltop village next to the burned ghost town of Monterano, where Bernini's San Bonaventura and the Baroque fountain stand roofless.

Triora

Province: Imperia · 776 m

The witches' village at 776 meters in the upper Valle Argentina, where the Inquisition put around 200 women on trial between 1587 and 1589.

Mantova

Province: Mantova · 19 m

A Gonzaga capital at 19 meters, encircled on three sides by lakes the Mincio formed in the twelfth century, UNESCO-listed together with Sabbioneta since 2008.

Montesegale

Province: Pavia · 400 m

A 258-person hill village at 400 meters in the Oltrepò Pavese, built around the Gambarana castle that today holds a contemporary art collection.

Cantiano

Province: Pesaro e Urbino · 374 m

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.

Senigallia

Province: Ancona · 5 m

Thirteen kilometers of fine sand on the Adriatic that earned the Spiaggia di Velluto name, hometown of photographer Mario Giacomelli and chef Mauro Uliassi.

Castelvetrano

Province: Trapani · 187 m

The Belice valley town that owns Selinunte, the largest archaeological park in Europe, and bakes black bread from grain found in its tombs.

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.

Nicolosi

Province: Catania · 698 m

The southern gateway to Etna at 698 meters, twice destroyed by the 1669 eruption, base camp for the volcano cable car at Rifugio Sapienza.

Montaione

Province: Firenze · 341 m

A medieval glassmaking and truffle borgo at 341 meters above the Valdelsa, with a Franciscan replica of Jerusalem in the woods at San Vivaldo.

Montescudaio

Province: Pisa · 242 m

A fortified hill borgo at 242 meters above the Val di Cecina, named for a mountain of shields, with DOC wine since 1977 and bread, oil and grape all stamped in its identity.

Corciano

Province: Perugia · 408 m

A walled medieval castello at 408 meters eight kilometers west of Perugia, where Saint Francis stopped on his way back from Isola Maggiore in 1223.

Spoleto

Province: Perugia · 396 m

Lombard ducal capital at 396 meters under the Rocca Albornoziana, where a 230-meter aqueduct bridge crosses to Monteluco and Menotti founded the Festival in 1958.

Chioggia

Province: Venezia · 2 m

Italy's second fishing port, on an island at the south end of the Venetian Lagoon, called Little Venice for the Canale Vena.