Riserva Naturale
Riserva Naturale in Lazio
10 towns
Lazio has 10 Riserva Naturale communes in our index. They cluster in the Viterbo, Rieti, and Roma provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Acquapendente, Ronciglione, and Canale Monterano. 7 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
Acquapendente
Province: Viterbo · 420 m
The northernmost town in Lazio on the Via Francigena, at 420 meters above the Paglia, named in 964 for its waterfalls.
Ronciglione
Province: Viterbo · 441 m
A tufa-brick borgo above Lake Vico at 441 meters, fortified by the Prefects of Vico and crowned Borgo dei Borghi in 2023.
Canale Monterano
Province: Roma · 376 m
A hilltop village next to the burned ghost town of Monterano, where Bernini's San Bonaventura and the Baroque fountain stand roofless.
Caprarola
Province: Viterbo · 510 m
A Cimini hill town above Lago di Vico, dominated by the pentagonal Villa Farnese that Vignola built for the Farnese cardinals between 1559 and 1573.
Fiuggi
Province: Frosinone · 747 m
The Ernici-mountain thermal town where Boniface VIII and Michelangelo both came to dissolve kidney stones with the oligomineral spring water.
Tivoli
Province: Roma · 235 m
A travertine town on the Aniene falls twenty-five kilometers east of Rome, holding two separate UNESCO sites: Hadrian's villa below and the Villa d'Este above.
Bomarzo
Province: Viterbo · 263 m
The Tuscia village below the Sacro Bosco, the 16th-century stone-monster garden built by a grieving condottiero for his dead wife.
Castel di Tora
Province: Rieti · 607 m
A village of 266 on Lago del Turano at 607 meters, with an eleventh-century polygonal tower and a ghost promontory called Antuni.
Collalto Sabino
Province: Rieti · 980 m
A 980-meter Sabine borgo dominated by a Barberini baronial castle, with a 360-degree panorama from the keep over the Gran Sasso, Terminillo and Maiella.
Ventotene
Province: Latina · 18 m
The smaller of the inhabited Pontine Islands, a flat three-kilometer tuff platform where Altiero Spinelli drafted the federalist Manifesto in 1941.
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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.