Comuni Virtuosi
Comuni Virtuosi in Calabria
4 towns
Calabria has 4 Comuni Virtuosi communes in our index. They cluster in the Cosenza and Reggio di Calabria provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Roseto Capo Spulico, Montegiordano, and Alessandria del Carretto. 1 more town carries the mark alongside them.
Roseto Capo Spulico
Province: Cosenza · 217 m
A Frederician castle on a rock above the Ionian, a former Sybaris satellite city founded in the seventh century BC, Templar legend included.
Montegiordano
Province: Cosenza · 619 m
A 619-meter Alto Jonio hill town with a Pignone del Carretto hunting castle and more than two hundred murals across its centro storico.
Alessandria del Carretto
Province: Cosenza · 1,043 m
The highest village in the Pollino at 1,043 meters, the only Italian commune carrying its founder's full name, with a fir-tree ritual every 3 May.
Riace
Province: Reggio di Calabria · 300 m
A 300-meter borgo on the Locride hills, famous for the 1972 bronzes pulled from its sea and the refugee resettlement project that doubled its population.
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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.