Parco Nazionale
Parco Nazionale in Sardinia
9 towns
Sardinia holds 9 Parco Nazionale sites inside our catalogue. They cluster in the Nuoro and Sassari provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are La Maddalena, Oliena, and Atzara. 6 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
La Maddalena
Province: Sassari · 19 m
The only inhabited town of a sixty-island granite archipelago between Sardinia and Corsica, and the place Giuseppe Garibaldi chose to die.
Oliena
Province: Nuoro · 380 m
A Supramonte village at the foot of Monte Corrasi, source of Cannonau Nepente, base camp for Tiscali and the Lanaitto valley.
Atzara
Province: Nuoro · 553 m
A Mandrolisai wine village on the western Gennargentu, painted in the early twentieth century by Spanish costumbristas and the Sardinian Scuola di Atzara.
Aritzo
Province: Nuoro · 800 m
A Mandrolisai mountain village at 800 meters in chestnut and hazelnut forest, where snow once travelled out in straw and came back as lemon sorbet.
Dorgali
Province: Nuoro · 387 m
A Supramonte town at 387 meters with the coastal frazione Cala Gonone, the Tiscali Nuragic village, and the 400-meter walls of Su Gorropu.
Fonni
Province: Nuoro · 1,000 m
The highest village in Sardinia at 1,000 meters on the Gennargentu, with ski lifts to Bruncu Spina and the Madonna dei Martiri sanctuary.
Gavoi
Province: Nuoro · 777 m
A 777-meter Barbagia hilltop village above Lake Gusana with a Bandiera Arancione of the Touring Club, the country's most-attended summer literary festival (L'Isola delle Storie), and the PDO Fiore Sardo pecorino made here for at least three centuries.
Baunei
Province: Nuoro · 480 m
A village at 480 meters on the Monte Santo limestone ridge above the Gulf of Orosei, with Selvaggio Blu and Cala Goloritzé in its territory.
Orgosolo
Province: Nuoro · 620 m
A Barbagia village at 620 meters with over 150 political murals painted on its walls since the 1969 Pratobello revolt.
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.