Parco Regionale
Parco Regionale in Lombardy
20 towns
Lombardy holds 20 Parco Regionale sites inside our catalogue. They cluster in the Brescia, Bergamo, and Mantova provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Monzambano, Gardone Riviera, and Bergamo. 17 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
Monzambano
Province: Mantova · 88 m
A Mincio commune at 88 meters in the moraine hills west of Mantova, whose frazione Castellaro Lagusello sits on a heart-shaped lake inside fortified walls.
Gardone Riviera
Province: Brescia · 71 m
A western Garda lakeshore town whose hillside holds the Vittoriale, the estate Gabriele D'Annunzio turned into a monument to himself.
Bergamo
Province: Bergamo · 249 m
A two-city Lombard capital where a Venetian walled hilltown sits 85 meters above its modern twin on the plain, 45 kilometers northeast of Milan.
Gromo
Province: Bergamo · 676 m
A medieval iron-forging town at 676 meters on a rock spur above the Serio, once called the little Toledo for its sword smiths.
Limone sul Garda
Province: Brescia · 65 m
The northernmost lemon-growing town in the world, at 46 degrees north on the western shore of Lake Garda, reached by road only in 1932.
Mantova
Province: Mantova · 19 m
A Gonzaga capital at 19 meters, encircled on three sides by lakes the Mincio formed in the twelfth century, UNESCO-listed together with Sabbioneta since 2008.
Castione della Presolana
Province: Bergamo · 870 m
A high-valley commune at 870 meters under the Pizzo della Presolana, the limestone peak the Bergamasque call the Queen of the Orobie.
Cimbergo
Province: Brescia · 851 m
A village of 533 at 851 meters above the Oglio, with castle ruins on a spur and UNESCO petroglyphs on the slopes below.
Livigno
Province: Sondrio · 1,816 m
At 1,816 meters in the Italian Alps near the Swiss border, a duty-free ski valley that drains north into the Black Sea, not the Mediterranean.
Ponte di Legno
Province: Brescia · 1,257 m
The uppermost commune of Valle Camonica at 1,257 meters, where the two source streams of the Oglio meet under the Adamello range.
Soncino
Province: Cremona · 88 m
A walled borgo on the Oglio with the Sforza fortress of 1473 and the press that printed the first complete Hebrew Bible in 1488.
Tignale
Province: Brescia · 560 m
A six-hamlet commune on a high terrace above Lake Garda's western shore, anchored by a clifftop sanctuary and the last working limonaie north of Salò.
Curtatone
Province: Mantova · 25 m
A commune of eight frazioni west of Mantova, anchored by the Grazie sanctuary and the 1848 battle that delayed Radetzky's advance.
Gorgonzola
Province: Milano · 132 m
The town that gave its name to the cheese — a 21,000-resident commune on the Naviglio della Martesana 24 km east of Milan, the documented birthplace of Gorgonzola DOP since AD 879 and now the eastern terminus of Milan's M2 metro line, with a Greenways cycling-route signal along the canal.
Sarnico
Province: Bergamo · 197 m
A medieval lake town at the southern tip of Lago d'Iseo, where the Oglio leaves the lake and Liberty villas line the shore.
Toscolano-Maderno
Province: Brescia · 72 m
Twin lakeside villages on the western shore of Garda, paper mill suppliers to the Republic of Venice from the 14th century onward.
Tremosine sul Garda
Province: Brescia · 414 m
A cliff-top commune of 18 frazioni 350 meters above Lake Garda, reached by the Strada della Forra carved through the Brasa gorge.
Volta Mantovana
Province: Mantova · 91 m
A morainic hill town between Mantua and Lake Garda where Ludovico Gonzaga built a country palace inside the old medieval castle.
Salò
Province: Brescia · 65 m
On the deepest gulf of Lake Garda, with the lake's longest waterfront promenade and the cathedral of the Riviera di Salò.
Varenna
Province: Lecco · 220 m
A fishing village founded in 769 on the Lecco arm of Lake Como, with a steep grid of streets falling into the water.
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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.