Comuni Virtuosi
Comuni Virtuosi in Umbria
4 towns
Umbria has 4 Comuni Virtuosi communes in our index. They cluster in the Perugia and Terni provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Paciano, Vallo di Nera, and Montecchio. 1 more town carries the mark alongside them.
Paciano
Province: Perugia · 391 m
Walled hill town of 957 people at 391 meters above Lake Trasimeno, three parallel streets, eight towers and three medieval gates intact.
Vallo di Nera
Province: Perugia · 467 m
Castle village of 345 people at 467 meters in the upper Valnerina, granted by Spoleto in 1217 and barely changed since.
Montecchio
Province: Terni · 377 m
A small hill commune at 377 meters above the Tiber, sitting on top of one of Umbria's largest Etruscan-tied necropolises.
Pietralunga
Province: Perugia · 566 m
A pre-Apennine hill town at 566 meters on the northeast Tiber ridge, ringed by truffle woods and white-potato fields.
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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.