The 8 best hidden hill towns within 90 minutes of Roma
The country around Rome rises quickly once the ring road is behind you. Volcanic rock, soft and grey-gold, gives the older quarters their walls, their cut stairways and the tombs hollowed into the roadside banks. Spring brings wild asparagus and artichokes to the market stalls, autumn brings chestnuts, porcini and the hazelnuts of the Cimini hills, and the trattorie work through the year with pecorino romano, coratella and bowls of fettuccine cut by hand. On a clear winter morning the Apennines show white behind the nearer ridges, and the air on a hill town belvedere is several degrees colder than the city.
But the standard day out of Rome is Tivoli, and everyone knows it. Villa d'Este and Villa Adriana take the coaches from mid-morning, the ticket queues bunch under the trees, and the terraces of the town fill with people eating on a timetable set by a return coach. The gardens deserve their reputation. They are simply not a quiet day, and they are not the only hill town within reach of a train from Roma Termini.
The same ridges run on north into the Tuscia and east into the Monti Lucretili and the Aniene valley, past the coach parks and the signposted villas. Fewer people go to the towns on them, though the geology, the woods and the cooking are the same. This list stays with the inland hill settlements: tufa quarters, small piazzas, and roads that keep climbing.
Of the 30 communes we have mapped in within 90 minutes of Roma, 12 qualify as hill towns: each is an inland hill settlement. This list is the hidden ones, 8 in all, ordered smallest first. The smallest, Percile, has 219 residents.
If you are still choosing, we have also written The best hill towns you can reach by train within 90 minutes of Roma and The best hill towns inside a nature park in Lazio.
Percile
Why visit Percile
Percile sits sixty kilometers from Rome, on the border between the Roma and Rieti provinces. The name derives from gens Porcia, a Roman family of the area, and the earliest documented evidence of habitation dates between 314 and 335, in the biography of Pope Sylvester I.
The village occupies the rocky spur itself, walled stone houses and vaulted passages built to the shape of the ground; above it the slopes rise into oak and beech woods that belong to the wider park, climbing toward Monte Pellecchia. The relation between the two levels is the whole of the place: the settlement below, compact and defensible on its spur, and the water held above it in limestone basins fed by underground springs.
What the borgo protected on the ground, the park has protected in the hills. The population today is 219, spread across a comune territory of 24 square kilometers, which makes Percile a small fixed point inside a much larger stretch of protected woodland.
What to see in Percile
- Lagustelli di Percile. The walk up from the village runs through oak forest and ends at clear water held in two limestone basins between 674 and 704 meters, filled by underground springs.
- Centro storico. Medieval stone village on a rocky spur, with vaulted passages, surviving gates and the panorama from the upper terrace.
- Parco Naturale dei Monti Lucretili. Regional park covering oak and beech woods on the karst slopes around the village, with marked trails to the lakes and toward Monte Pellecchia.
How to get to Percile
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Roma is roughly 54 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September through October are the best months at 575 meters. The Lucretili woods are green into June and the walks up to the Lagustelli are at their best when the karst basins are full from spring rain. July and August are workable; the village stays cooler than Rome forty kilometers downhill, but the open trails go silent in midday heat.
Oriolo Romano
Why visit Oriolo Romano
Oriolo Romano sits at 420 meters in the Sabatini hills, between Lake Bracciano and the volcanic Cimini, not far from the old Via Clodia. The village is unusually new for the Tuscia: in 1560 the Orsini family ceded a wooded fief to the nobleman Giorgio Santacroce, who began clearing the forest and founded a planned agricultural settlement.
The first inhabitants were farmers, shepherds and woodcutters drawn from Tuscany and Umbria, so the local accent kept Umbrian inflections for generations. The palace at the center of the village gave the settlement its shape, with the parish church and the main square arranged around it as the plan intended.
The forest that once covered the whole fief survives now at the margins, an exceptionally low-altitude stand for an Apennine beech wood, while hazelnut groves have taken over the lower slopes that were cleared for farming. The village, in effect, is the cleared half of a wooded fief, its cultivated ring still framed by the wood the Santacroce family left standing.
What to see in Oriolo Romano
- Palazzo Altieri. Sixteenth-century palace enlarged in 1674 under Pope Clement X, with Old Testament frescoes and painted views of the Altieri fiefs.
- Faggeta di Monte Raschio. Primeval beech forest of about eighty hectares between 400 and 550 meters, UNESCO World Heritage since 2017.
- Piazza Umberto I. Central square of the 1560 plan, anchored by the palace and the parish Chiesa di Sant'Anna at the head of the village.
How to get to Oriolo Romano
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Roma is roughly 75 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the months for the beech forest, when the canopy is full and the trails on Monte Raschio are at their cleanest. The exceptionally low altitude of the faggeta means autumn color arrives earlier and lasts longer than in higher Apennine beech woods. July and August push the lower hills into the low thirties; the forest holds shade and stays five or six degrees cooler than the surrounding farmland. Oriolo Romano Porcini Mushroom Festival falls in September.
Canale Monterano
Why visit Canale Monterano
Canale Monterano sits at 376 meters on a tuff hill forty-five kilometers northwest of Rome, between the Bracciano basin and the Tolfa hills. The inhabited town is small, four thousand residents, built around a working bakery tradition.
Two kilometers away, on a separate tuff bluff above the confluence of the Mignone and Bicione rivers, is the reason most people make the trip: the ghost town, set on the far side of a valley the living town does not touch. The relationship between the two places is one of distance and separation rather than continuity.
Canale Monterano went on being a town; the settlement on the bluff did not, and the two kilometers between them mark the difference between a place that was rebuilt after the fire and one that never was. What is left on the bluff is masonry with the roofs and interiors gone, watched over from its highest point by the palace facade, with the fountain still running below in an otherwise empty piazza.
The regional reserve now holds the whole valley, ruin and river system together, so that the abandoned village survives inside protected land rather than beside a working one.
What to see in Canale Monterano
- Ruderi di Monterano. Ghost town two kilometers from Canale, burned by French Republican troops in 1799, never rebuilt; now the centerpiece of the regional reserve.
- Chiesa e Convento di San Bonaventura. Roofless, facing an open sky where the roof beams once sat. The façade and convent block still stand at the edge of the ruined village, built for the Altieri family by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
- Fontana Ottagonale del Leone. Still flowing through the stone lion's mouth in the middle of an otherwise empty piazza, the only thing in the ghost town that still functions as built.
How to get to Canale Monterano
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Roma is roughly 70 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September through October are the best months for the reserve. The trail from the parking lot to the ruins is exposed, and spring and autumn keep the temperatures comfortable. July and August push past thirty degrees on the tuff plateau, and the open ruins offer no shade after eleven in the morning; early-morning visits are the workaround. Sagra del Lombrichello a Canale Monterano falls in July.
Ronciglione
Why visit Ronciglione
The town stands on a tufa spur at 441 meters, five kilometers from the lake, with the Cimini hills and their hazelnut groves closing in around it on every side. The first record of it dates to 1103.
The Prefetti di Vico held it before the Farnese took it as a Duchy, and the sixteenth-century pontiff who granted the town its Carnival did so during that same passage of rule from prefects to dukes. The fortress's towers control the single natural approach to the historic center, so the medieval town and its defenses are really one structure: whoever held the towers held the road in.
Everything built afterward, the cathedral, the contrade, the Carnival itself, sits inside that same defended perimeter. What the RAI title recognized in 2023 was less a single monument than that whole arrangement still intact: a fortified approach, a walled center, and a lake and hills that have not changed shape around it.
What to see in Ronciglione
- Rocca dei Borgia (I Torrioni). Medieval fortress of the Prefects of Vico, twin round towers guarding the only natural approach to the centro storico.
- Duomo dei Santi Pietro e Caterina. Baroque cathedral of 1671, polychrome marble altar, fifteenth-century triptych by a Viterbo painter, wooden statue of San Bartolomeo.
- Lago di Vico. Volcanic lake ringed by the Cimini hills, its waters filling the crater below the level of the town on its spur.
How to get to Ronciglione
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Roma is roughly 64 minutes away by road.
✷ We have written about Ronciglione
“Suddenly, we weren't running around. Ronciglione has nothing, and I mean zero things to show you. It's a pretty generic medieval town near Rome. It doesn't have a big piazza. There is a gate, a duomo, 2-3 main streets, and pretty much that's it. Yet, it was the center of our attention at that time. After spending just a few days there, we went back to Rome without wrinkles, with an oddly weird smile on our faces.”
Read our piece on Ronciglione →Ronciglione | Baptism into the Other Italy
Our tip
April through June brings the Cimini hills into green, hazelnut groves in flower and Lake Vico cool enough for the morning. September and October are the harvest months, dry, mild, with the air clear enough to see Monte Cimino from the Rocca. July and August touch the upper thirties and fill the lake with Romans on weekends. Palio di Ronciglione falls in July.
Capranica
Why visit Capranica
Capranica sits in the Tuscia at the fifty-fifth kilometer of the Via Cassia, on a hill overlooking the Sutri valley between Lake Bracciano and Lake Vico. The Etruscans worked this ground; the medieval borgo grew along the Cassia after the road was rebuilt in the second century BC.
The Anguillara family appeared in 1305 and held the town through most of the fourteenth century. In 1337, under Orso degli Anguillara, Francesco Petrarca stayed here on his way south, the moment local memory still attaches to the place.
Castrovecchio is the oldest quarter, a wedge of stone houses and stepped streets above the Castello degli Anguillara. The town is one of the Italian comuni crossed by the Via Francigena, with a marked stage running north toward Sutri and Vetralla.
Hazelnut groves cover the surrounding slopes; Capranica is a member of the Città della Nocciola network and supplies the Tonda Gentile Romana, the local DOP variety.
What to see in Capranica
- Castello degli Anguillara. Medieval fortress at the head of Castrovecchio, seat of the Anguillara family from 1305 and the place Petrarch stayed in 1337.
- Castrovecchio. Oldest quarter of the town, a wedge of stone houses and stepped streets rising above the Cassia toward the castle.
- Chiesa di San Francesco. Fourteenth-century Franciscan church on the edge of Castrovecchio, with fresco fragments and Anguillara family tombs.
How to get to Capranica
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Roma is roughly 72 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the walking months in the Tuscia, when the hazelnut groves are green and the Cassia is light. July and August push the slopes into the low thirties; the medieval centro storico holds shade well enough, but afternoons stay quiet. The hazelnut harvest runs through late August and September and the air around the town smells of toasted nuts for weeks.
Sutri
Why visit Sutri
Sutri sits at 291 meters on a narrow tuff spur, fifty kilometers north of Rome on the old road linking the two. The Etruscans held it before the Romans took it in the fourth century BC, and it was among the colonies that refused further military contributions to Rome during the Second Punic War in 209 BC.
The rock-cut monuments that define the town, the arena, the temple turned sanctuary, the chamber tombs, all come from the same tuff spur the town is built on, so the stone that gives Sutri its ground is also what its Etruscan and Roman residents carved into. The high ground above, where the eighteenth-century villa and its gardens sit, looks down over that older excavated town rather than sitting apart from it.
Local tradition ties the town's beans to Charlemagne, who passed through and was supposedly relieved of an attack of gout by Sutri's variety. What the place adds up to is a settlement where the town and its excavation are the same rock: nothing was built so much as removed.
What to see in Sutri
- Anfiteatro Romano. Elliptical amphitheater about forty-nine by forty meters, carved directly out of the tuff rock rather than built on it.
- Mithraeum / Madonna del Parto. Roman temple to Mithras hewn into the tuff and reused as a Marian sanctuary, accessed through the medieval rock-cut church.
- Necropoli rupestre. Etruscan necropolis with dozens of rock-cut chamber tombs in the cliff face along the Via Cassia.
How to get to Sutri
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Roma is roughly 57 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the best months in the tuff country, when the amphitheater grass is green and the gardens of Villa Savorelli are open. July and August push afternoons into the mid-thirties; the rock-cut Mithraeum and tomb chambers stay cool and become the part of the visit that doesn't need to be timed. November through March is quiet.
Subiaco
Why visit Subiaco
Subiaco sits at 408 meters along the upper Aniene, seventy-three kilometers east of Rome and forty from Tivoli. Nero built a villa here in the first century, damming the river into artificial lakes known as Sublaqueum, below the lake, and the name outlasted the villa and the emperor both.
The town that grew up here reads in layers going up the valley side: the river and the bridge at the bottom, the abbey partway up the hill, the fortress at the summit, and the cliff sanctuary further out along the cliff face that gave the hermit's cave its shelter, each one built at a different remove from the water and from the town center. What holds these layers together is a single life.
A man who came here as a young man to live alone in a cave gave his name to a monastery down the hill, and centuries later that same monastery's press put the first printed book on Italian soil into circulation. The fortress above answers to a different history, the abbots who ruled here as feudal lords, one of whom fathered a child who became one of the most written-about women of her age.
A river valley that supplied an emperor's pleasure lakes became, without much overlap, the ground where monastic life took its early shape.
What to see in Subiaco
- Monastero del Sacro Speco. Built into the cliff face of Monte Taleo, the sanctuary rises in tiers over the cave itself, and the frescoes by Conxolus and the school of Cimabue cover walls that follow the rock rather than a flat plan.
- Abbazia di Santa Scolastica. The only one of Benedict's twelve original monasteries still standing, sixth century in origin; its library holds three hundred manuscripts, including a copy of the Lactantius run off the abbey's own press.
- Rocca Abbaziale (Rocca dei Borgia). Set on the highest ground of the borgo, the fortress was raised by abbot Giovanni V in the twelfth century and later gave Lucrezia Borgia, daughter of the abbot Rodrigo Borgia, a birthplace in 1480.
How to get to Subiaco
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Roma is roughly 70 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September through October are the months for Subiaco: the Aniene runs full, the cliff sanctuaries are open from morning, and the pilgrim road south fills with walkers on the Cammino di San Benedetto. July and August are warm in town and cool in the monasteries; the cave at the Sacro Speco holds twelve degrees year-round. November through March is the quiet pilgrim season, mist on the river and few coaches in the lots. Festa Madonna di Pompei Rione Colle falls in August.
Castelnuovo di Porto
Why visit Castelnuovo di Porto
Castelnuovo di Porto sits at 250 meters on a tufa spur between the Chiarano and Mola valleys. The first fortification went up before the year 1000 under the senator Alberico, and the medieval village grew around it in concentric loops that still shape the centro storico today.
The Colonna family took the fief in the late Middle Ages and built the fortress that occupies the highest point of the ridge, the keep from which the whole settlement takes its layout, houses and passages stepping down the slope in rings. The town's name preserves its administrative link to the river: this was the Castrum Novum of the bishop of Porto, the old diocesan seat at the Tiber mouth, a naming that ties a tufa hilltop village to an ecclesiastical authority seated on the coast.
The Borghi più belli d'Italia membership covers the centro storico and the fortress together, while Etruscan and Roman archaeology runs through the Veio park that surrounds both. The result is a village whose name records a bishop's jurisdiction, whose form records a medieval defense, and whose surroundings record two much older civilizations, all still legible on the same ridge.
What to see in Castelnuovo di Porto
- Rocca Colonna. Ducal palace inside the keep at the highest point of the ridge, used by Marcantonio Colonna after Lepanto and later by Christina of Sweden passing through to Rome.
- Centro storico. Tufa houses and vaulted passages along the concentric loops, with the surviving village gates still marking the old perimeter.
- Chiesa di Santa Lucia. Parish church inside the walls, with Renaissance frescoes and a baptismal font dating to the period of the fortress above it.
How to get to Castelnuovo di Porto
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Roma is roughly 37 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September through October are the strongest months. The Tiber valley is green in spring and the rocca terraces open cleanest at low sun. July and August touch the upper thirties; the centro storico stays cooler than Rome twenty-five kilometers downhill but the Veio park trails go silent in midday heat.
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