Designation
Infioritalia
12 towns across 8 regions
Browse by region
Lazio2
Bolsena
Province: Viterbo · 350 m
A medieval town at 350 meters on the eastern shore of Europe's largest volcanic lake, where a Bohemian priest reported a Eucharistic miracle in 1263.
Bracciano
Province: Roma · 280 m
The Lazio lake town with the eighth-largest lake in Italy below it and one of the best-preserved Renaissance castles in the country above it.
Liguria2
- ✷ We've been
Brugnato
Province: La Spezia · 115 m
The medieval ecclesiastical capital of the Val di Vara, seat of a diocese from 1133 to 1820, with a co-cathedral built over a Columban monastery.
Pietra Ligure
Province: Savona · 4 m
A Riviera di Ponente town named after the seventh-century castle on its rock, with one of the largest flower carpets in Europe every three years.
Umbria3
Città della Pieve
Province: Perugia · 508 m
A red-brick hill town at 508 meters above the Valdichiana, the birthplace of Perugino and the home of Italy's narrowest alley.
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.
San Gemini
Province: Terni · 337 m
A medieval borgo at 337 meters above the Via Flaminia, four kilometers below the ruins of Roman Carsulae.
Subscribe — free
Get the best guides on hidden Italian towns.
One letter on Sundays. The week’s town, with the photo, the food, the festa. Free, by Peter & Sophia from Pietrasanta.
Substack sends a confirmation link to your inbox. The signup finishes when it’s clicked.
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.