The complete list
The best small mountain towns in Italy above 500 metres, all of them
217 towns · 20 regions · the complete list

Scanno, Abruzzo
Above five hundred metres the air changes, the building stone changes, and the towns stop being places you pass through and start being places you arrive at. Italy has two mountain chains and both are full of villages that were poor for centuries and are now the quietest, coolest places in the country in August.
This is every town in our catalogue that sits in the mountains at or above 500 metres, 217 of them across 20 regions, best-recognised first. Type a region or a province to narrow it.

Scanno
Province: L'Aquila · 1,057 m
A 1,057-meter Sagittario valley village where women in black still walk the alleys photographed by Cartier-Bresson and Giacomelli.

Villalago
Province: L'Aquila · 930 m
A 930-meter village above three lakes, named for the nine that once filled the valley, with a hermit's cave on the water's edge.

Pescocostanzo
Province: L'Aquila · 1,395 m
A planned Renaissance town at 1,395 meters on the Quarto Grande plateau, with bobbin lace, wrought iron, and the wood ceilings of a five-nave church.

Pacentro
Province: L'Aquila · 650 m
A medieval village at 650 meters under the Caldora castle towers, where every September a barefoot race honors a Madonna and a pop singer's grandparents.

Pettorano sul Gizio
Province: L'Aquila · 656 m
At 656 meters above the Gizio river, a Cantelmo fortress town that guarded the gateway to the Peligna valley for four hundred years.

Pietracamela
Province: Teramo · 1,005 m
A village of 218 people clinging at 1,005 meters under the north wall of Corno Piccolo, birthplace of Italian Apennine climbing in 1925.

Santo Stefano di Sessanio
Province: L'Aquila · 1,250 m
A Medici outpost at 1,250 meters, restored building by building since 1999 into Italy's first scattered hotel.

Castel del Monte
Province: L'Aquila · 1,346 m
At 1,346 meters under Monte Bolza facing Rocca Calascio, the capital of shepherds, whose wool reached the Medici and whose witches return each August.

Lama dei Peligni
Province: Chieti · 669 m
A 669-meter Majella village known for chamois, the Cavallone cave, and a prehistoric burial dug from Fonterossi dated 7000 to 5000 BC.

Civitella Alfedena
Province: L'Aquila · 1,123 m
At 1,123 meters above Lake Barrea, 285 residents, the trailhead for the Camosciara reserve and home of the Apennine Wolf Museum.
The rest of the 217
Abruzzo28
- Anversa degli Abruzzi
- Navelli
- Tagliacozzo
- Barrea
- Introdacqua
- Rivisondoli
- Campo di Giove
- Ovindoli
- Calascio
- Castelvecchio Calvisio
- Villetta Barrea
- Cappadocia
- Roccaraso
- Sante Marie
- Goriano Sicoli
- Alfedena
- Pescasseroli
- Scontrone
- Carsoli
- Pescina
- Civita d'Antino
- Monteferrante
- Montelapiano
- Rocca di Botte
- L'Aquila
- Scurcola Marsicana
- Capistrello
- Castel di Sangro
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Basilicata14
Calabria11
Campania12
Emilia-Romagna6
Friuli-Venezia Giulia3
Lazio11
Liguria2
Lombardy12
Marche5
Molise14
Piedmont10
Apulia5
Sardinia6
Sicily17
Tuscany5
Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol23
Umbria4
Aosta Valley12
Veneto7
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