Via Francigena
Via Francigena in Apulia
10 towns
Apulia has 10 Via Francigena communes in our index. They cluster in the Foggia, Lecce, and Bari provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Monte Sant'Angelo, Gravina in Puglia, and Fasano. 7 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
Monte Sant'Angelo
Province: Foggia · 843 m
The Gargano peak at 843 meters where the Archangel Michael appeared in 490, the oldest western shrine to him, UNESCO since 2011.
Gravina in Puglia
Province: Bari · 350 m
Puglia's deepest gravina — a 42,700-resident Bari-province town built on the lip of a 100m-deep limestone canyon, with the 18th-c Ponte Acquedotto walkway across the gorge that James Bond crossed in No Time to Die, a network of rupestrian cave churches in the cliff face, and the four-signal BPB + Cittaslow + Via Francigena + Parco Nazionale combination.
Fasano
Province: Brindisi · 118 m
A Brindisi-province town from the Adriatic up to the Itria escarpment, holding the Roman ruins of Egnazia, the Selva, and Europe's second-largest safari park.
Lecce
Province: Lecce · 49 m
The Baroque capital of the Salento, ninety-four thousand people on the Lecce-stone plain, carving its façades in honey limestone since 1500.
Monopoli
Province: Bari · 9 m
An Adriatic walled town forty kilometers south of Bari, the Charles V castle on the headland, 156 square kilometers of coastline behind it.
San Giovanni Rotondo
Province: Foggia · 565 m
The Gargano town where Padre Pio lived for fifty-two years, second-largest pilgrimage site in Italy, with a Renzo Piano sanctuary that seats 6,500.
San Severo
Province: Foggia · 86 m
The Daunia wine capital on the Tavoliere, home to Puglia's first DOC of 1968 and a Carnevale of fanoia explosions known across the south.
Otranto
Province: Lecce · 20 m
Italy's easternmost city, eighty kilometers from Albania, with a Norman mosaic floor and the bones of 813 martyrs in the cathedral.
Trani
Province: Barletta-Andria-Trani · 7 m
The Adriatic port whose pink-white Romanesque cathedral stands on the water, built for a Greek pilgrim who died here in 1094.
Vernole
Province: Lecce · 38 m
A Salento commune ten kilometers from Lecce whose frazione of Acaya is the only Renaissance fortified town in southern Italy.
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From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Pieve di Soligo
Province: Treviso
The market town between the Soligo and Lierza rivers in the Prosecco UNESCO zone, birthplace of the twentieth-century poet Andrea Zanzotto.
Vallefoglia
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
A 2014 merger commune at 295 meters in the Foglia valley, born from Colbordolo, birthplace of Raffaello's father, and Sant'Angelo in Lizzola.
Abano Terme
Province: Padova
Europe's oldest thermal town on the Euganean Hills' eastern slope, where 80°C bromo-iodine springs have been drawing bathers since the eighth century BC.
Bosa
Province: Oristano
A colour-washed riverside town on Sardinia's only navigable river, with a Malaspina castle on the hill and the tanneries of Sas Conzas along the Temo.
Castagnole delle Lanze
Province: Asti
An Asti hill town at 298 meters between Langhe and Monferrato, with two Baroque churches and a nineteenth-century astronomical tower.