Città delle Grotte
Città delle Grotte in Abruzzo
4 towns
Abruzzo has 4 Città delle Grotte communes in our index. They cluster in the L'Aquila and Chieti provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Lama dei Peligni, Sante Marie, and Cappadocia. 1 more town carries the mark alongside them.
Lama dei Peligni
Province: Chieti · 669 m
A 669-meter Majella village known for chamois, the Cavallone cave, and a prehistoric burial dug from Fonterossi dated 7000 to 5000 BC.
Sante Marie
Province: L'Aquila · 950 m
A 950-meter Marsica village and the trailhead of the Cammino dei Briganti, the seven-day brigand trail through the Cartore band's territory.
Cappadocia
Province: L'Aquila · 1,102 m
Italy's Cappadocia — a 575-resident Marsican borgo at 1,102m in Abruzzo's western mountains, with the spectacular Grotte di Pietrasecca karst cave system (the longest in the central Apennines), Borgo Autentico + Città delle Grotte signals, and a name that does cause genuine reservations for travellers expecting Turkey's hot-air balloon landscape.
Carsoli
Province: L'Aquila · 616 m
A 616-meter mountain town in the Marsica, built next to the ruins of Roman Carsioli, the 4th-century BC fortress on the road to Alba Fucens.
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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.