The prettiest villages that eat well in Emilia-Romagna
Emilia-Romagna eats better than almost anywhere in Italy, and it does it in stone. Villages built of river cobble and pale Apennine sandstone sit on ridges above the Trebbia, the Conca and the Savio, with arcaded streets, a rocca at the top and a butcher who still cures culatello in a damp cellar. Autumn is the season that rewards the drive: chestnut woods on the passes, new Lambrusco and Sangiovese di Romagna in the cellars around Modena and Rimini, funghi porcini on every board. In winter the same kitchens turn to cappelletti in brodo and long-cooked ragù, and the dining rooms are warm and small.
People come here for Bologna, and reasonably so. The porticoes, the food markets off Via Pescherie Vecchie, the tortellini shops and the salumi counters make it one of the great eating cities in Europe, and it now takes the weight of that reputation on every weekend of the year. Parma and Modena absorb the overflow, with balsamic tours and Parmigiano dairies booked out months ahead. All of it is good. None of it is quiet.
The same producers supply the hills, and the hills are where the villages are. Follow the Via Emilia to its edges and turn uphill, into the Piacentino, the Modenese wine country, the Romagna Apennines and the ridges behind Rimini, and the food does not get worse, it gets cheaper and slower and comes with a view of a castle. The villages here have passed the national assessment of Italy's most beautiful villages, and each has a table a dining guide thought worth naming. Fewer people make the turn.
Of the 45 communes we have mapped in Emilia-Romagna, 6 qualify as prettiest villages that eat well: each has passed the national assessment of Italy's most beautiful villages, and a dining guide has named a table in each. The smallest, Montegridolfo, has 994 residents.
Elsewhere in the catalogue: The best hill towns that eat well in Emilia-Romagna and The best small towns that eat well in Emilia-Romagna.
Montegridolfo
Why visit Montegridolfo
Montegridolfo sits at 290 meters on the Romagna-Marche border ridge, twenty kilometers south of Rimini and just inland from the Adriatic. A first castle is documented here in 1148, belonging to the Abbey of San Pietro of Rimini; the village took its name from the Gridolfi, a Rimini Guelph family that settled here during the conflicts with the Ghibellines.
After a sack in 1288, the Malatesta rebuilt the walls in 1337 with four corner towers. One tower survives, plus the bell tower over the gate.
The borgo passed back and forth between Malatesta and Montefeltro through the fifteenth century, fell briefly to Cesare Borgia in 1502, then to Venice, then to the Papal States in 1509. The walled nucleus today holds barely 200 of the commune's 994 residents, with the rest in Trebbio, San Pietro, and Cabaldo.
Olive oil from the surrounding ridges carries the Colli di Romagna DOP designation; the town joined the Città dell'Olio network on that basis.
Osteria dell'Accademia have been named by a guide.
What to see in Montegridolfo
- Castello di Montegridolfo. Walled fourteenth-century burg built by the Malatesta in 1337 with four corner towers, of which one survives along with the bell tower over the original gate.
- Chiesa di San Rocco. Fifteenth-century church inside the walls, built in thanks after the village was spared a plague outbreak, with frescoes attributed to the school of the Marchigiana.
- Borgo murato. Compact walled nucleus of stone houses, narrow streets and a single piazza, restored in the 1990s and inhabited by artisans and a small permanent population.
How to get to Montegridolfo
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Rimini is roughly 42 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through October are the months that work in Montegridolfo. Spring brings clear views from the walls down to the Conca valley; September and October are the dry, gold months with the olive harvest beginning at the end of October. July and August are hot but the ridge catches the Adriatic breeze and the walled nucleus stays cool in shade.
Montefiore Conca
Why visit Montefiore Conca
Montefiore Conca sits above the Conca river valley, twenty kilometers south of Rimini, on a hill the Malatesta chose for both military and seasonal reasons: high enough to anchor a defensive ring, mild enough for a residence to be built alongside the garrison. The fortress and the walled borgo that grew around it form a single hilltop nucleus, with the Porta Curina gate marking the point where, after Federico da Montefeltro's troops took the town in the late fifteenth century, control reverted to the Holy See, a shift the villagers recorded by carving the arms of Pope Pius II into the stone themselves.
The commune extends beyond that nucleus into the frazioni of Serbadone and Marazzano and out to the ridge holding the Santuario della Bonora, spreading the settlement from a single fortified point into the surrounding hills. Recognition is double: Borghi più belli d'Italia and Bandiera Arancione, a pairing that reads less as decoration than as confirmation that the hill the Malatesta picked for defense and comfort still functions, centuries on, as both a place to look out from and a place worth looking at.
La Cerqua have been named by a guide.
What to see in Montefiore Conca
- Rocca Malatestiana. Mid-fourteenth-century fortress built under Malatesta Ungaro, combining military bulk with a residential wing whose frescoed halls received Pope Gregory XII and Louis I of Hungary.
- Santuario della Madonna di Bonora. Sanctuary reached on a wooded ridge two kilometers from the centro storico, with a venerated fresco of the Madonna and Child still the object of the pilgrimage traffic it draws.
- Borgo medievale. Walled hilltop nucleus around the fortress, with the Porta Curina gate carrying the Piccolomini arms of Pope Pius II carved by the villagers in the late fifteenth century, after control of the town reverted to the Holy See.
How to get to Montefiore Conca
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Rimini is roughly 35 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September through October are the strongest months, with mild evenings on the hill and clear views to the coast. July and August are hot in the Conca valley but the Rocca terrace catches the breeze that the riviera below does not. The fortress opens daily in summer, weekends only from November through March.
Bobbio
Why visit Bobbio
Bobbio sits on the left bank of the Trebbia at 272 meters, at the foot of Monte Penice in the Piacentine Apennines. The land was granted to Saint Columbanus by the Lombard king Agilulf in 614, and the monastery he raised on it grew, by the eighth century, into one of the principal libraries north of Rome, copying Greek, Latin, and Irish manuscripts that survived nowhere else.
The French suppressed the monastery in 1803; what the scriptorium and library once held now lives in fragments, kept in the basilica and its museum. The town below the abbey is crossed by the Trebbia on the Ponte Gobbo, its eleven irregular arches stretching 273 meters, a shape that gave rise to the story of the Devil and the saint dividing the bridge between them.
Bobbio still carries the Borghi più belli and Bandiera Arancione designations alongside the 2019 RAI title. A river crossing, a hill fortress, and a monastery ruin sit within reach of one another here, each holding a different piece of the same long settlement, one built by faith, one by feudal power, and one by the river itself.
Enoteca San Nicola, Piacentino have been named by a guide.
What to see in Bobbio
- Abbazia di San Colombano. The basilica and grounds where Saint Columbanus settled still stand; the scriptorium he founded is gone but its output is documented in surviving manuscripts held elsewhere.
- Ponte Gobbo. The eleven arches sit unevenly across the riverbed, the irregularity of their spacing the source of both the Devil's Bridge name and the Columbanus legend attached to it.
- Duomo di Bobbio. Romanesque cathedral begun in 1075, dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta, with a fifteenth-century fresco cycle in the apse.
How to get to Bobbio
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Piacenza is roughly 63 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June brings the green Val Trebbia season, when the river runs clear enough for swimming holes downstream. September and October are the working months for chestnuts, mushrooms, and the maccheroni alla bobbiese the town fills its trattorie with. July and August can hit thirty-three degrees in the valley, and the 2019 Borgo dei Borghi win still draws weekend crowds that fill the Ponte Gobbo. La Festa del Pinolo falls in August.
Castell'Arquato
Why visit Castell'Arquato
Castell'Arquato sits on the first hills of the Val d'Arda at 224 meters, thirty kilometers from Piacenza, the medieval borgo arranged in tight concentric levels around the old rock. The Collegiata di Santa Maria, founded by the noble Magnus in the eighth century, was rebuilt in 1122 after the 1117 earthquake destroyed the earlier church and is one of the finest Romanesque buildings in the Piacentino.
The Rocca Viscontea, with its thirty-five-meter tower, was begun in 1342 by Luchino Visconti, lord of Milan, to lock down the valley for Piacenza. The Palazzo del Podestà next door dates from 1292 and still anchors the Piazza Monumentale.
Luigi Illica, the librettist of Tosca, Madama Butterfly, La bohème and Andrea Chénier, was born in town in 1857; the museum dedicated to him sits in the house next to his birthplace. The Val d'Arda hills around the town produce the white wines that earned Castell'Arquato Città del Vino status.
Da Faccini have been named by a guide.
What to see in Castell'Arquato
- Rocca Viscontea. Fortress begun in 1342 by Luchino Visconti for the municipality of Piacenza, with a thirty-five-meter tower at the highest point of the borgo.
- Collegiata di Santa Maria Assunta. Romanesque collegiate church, founded in the eighth century and rebuilt in 1122 after the 1117 earthquake destroyed the earlier structure.
- Palazzo del Podestà. Civic palace from 1292 facing the Collegiata, with the original ghibelline merlons and a fourteenth-century loggia along its lower level.
How to get to Castell'Arquato
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Piacenza is roughly 38 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June is the best season for the Val d'Arda hills: the vineyards on the slopes below the borgo are green and the air clear enough to see across to the Appennino Piacentino. September and October bring the white-wine harvest and the chestnut weeks. July and August touch thirty-three degrees and the unshaded Piazza Monumentale becomes uncomfortable between noon and four.
Bagno di Romagna
Why visit Bagno di Romagna
Bagno di Romagna sits at 491 meters at the head of the Savio valley, on the Apennine ridge that separates Romagna from Tuscany. The town belonged to Tuscany until 1923, when Mussolini moved the provincial border so the source of the Tiber would fall inside his native Forlì.
Its name comes from the thermal springs that surface at 47 degrees, rich in sodium-carbonate-sulphur, used by the Romans and continuously since. Two thermal complexes still operate in the centro storico.
The municipality reaches into the Parco Nazionale delle Foreste Casentinesi, the largest old-growth beech and silver-fir forest in central Europe, where the Ridracoli reservoir holds the drinking water for most of Romagna. San Piero in Bagno, the larger frazione four kilometers down the road, was made the administrative seat by royal decree in 1865 while the older Bagno kept the name and the springs.
The town carries Borghi più belli, Bandiera Arancione, and Parco Nazionale recognition.
Da Gorini, Ristorante del Lago, Paolo Teverini and 1 more have been named by a guide.
What to see in Bagno di Romagna
- Terme di Sant'Agnese. Sulphurous thermal complex in the centro storico, drawing on springs that surface at 47 degrees and have been in continuous use since Roman times.
- Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta. Twelfth-century church with a fifteenth-century Della Robbia terracotta and a wooden crucifix attributed to the school of Brunelleschi.
- Parco Nazionale delle Foreste Casentinesi. Old-growth beech and silver-fir forest spanning the Apennine ridge, the largest continuous protected forest in central Europe.
How to get to Bagno di Romagna
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Forlì is roughly 78 minutes away by road.
Our tip
Bagno di Romagna runs all twelve months because the thermal water does. June through August brings hiking weather in the Foreste Casentinesi and crowds at Ridracoli; July and August can touch thirty-two degrees in the centro storico, though the valley cools sharply after sunset. September and October bring the chestnut and porcini season, and the forest changes colour into November. I giorni del Capitano falls in July.
Castelvetro di Modena
Why visit Castelvetro di Modena
Castelvetro di Modena sits on a hill at 152 meters, eighteen kilometers southeast of Modena and at the northern edge of the Apennine foothills. The medieval centro storico rises around the Piazza Roma, paved in alternating white and black stones that earned it the name Piazza della Dama, the checkerboard piazza, framed by the four surviving towers of the old castle.
The Grasparossa grape grows on the clay slopes around the town, the sandy soil and the south-facing aspect producing the deepest, most tannic of the three main Lambruschi; Lambrusco Grasparossa di Castelvetro received DOC status in 1970. Above the piazza, the Palazzo Rinaldi houses the Museo del Vino and the Museo dell'Aceto Balsamico, the second tracing the same Modenese tradition that nearby Spilamberto codifies.
The municipality holds three institutional signals: Borghi più belli, Bandiera Arancione, Città del Vino. The Sagra dell'Uva e del Lambrusco runs the last weekend of September, when the streets fill with the chess players from the surrounding Lambrusco towns dressed as living pieces on the piazza.
Locanda del Feudo, Opera|02 have been named by a guide.
What to see in Castelvetro di Modena
- Piazza Roma. Checkerboard piazza paved in alternating white and black stones, framed by the four surviving towers of the medieval castle.
- Castello di Levizzano Rangone. Tenth-century fortified frazione four kilometers north, with a tower built in the 990s and a fully preserved medieval village.
- Museo del Vino. Wine museum inside the Palazzo Rinaldi, tracing the Grasparossa production cycle and the DOC zone established in 1970.
How to get to Castelvetro di Modena
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Modena is roughly 28 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September through October are the Castelvetro months. The hills around the borgo turn green in spring and red in autumn when the Grasparossa vines colour up before the harvest. July and August are hot, thirty-five degrees in the valley, less in the hills above, and the cantine slow down.
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