The best towns with a food festival in Emilia-Romagna
Emilia-Romagna eats by season and announces it publicly. In autumn the Apennine towns fill with the smell of porcini and chestnut flour, trestle tables set up under porticoes of pale sandstone and brick, wine poured from unlabelled bottles. In the delta the year turns on eel, split and grilled over open fires in old brick warehouses beside the reeds. Spring brings artichokes and wild herbs, summer the melons and the shallots of the plain, and each of these arrivals is marked somewhere with a sagra: a food festival organised by a parish committee or a hunting club, run in the piazza, priced for local families rather than visitors.
Most people meet the region's food in Bologna, where the tortellini and the mortadella and the market stalls of the Quadrilatero are excellent and very well attended. Cooking classes sell out, food tours run back to back through the same few streets, and the queue outside the better delicatessens moves slowly all afternoon. Parma and Modena take the overflow, adding ham cellars and balsamic lofts to the itinerary. None of this is a mistake, but it is a city version of a regional cuisine, tasted indoors and mostly on a schedule set by other travellers.
The ingredients themselves come from further out, and so do the festivals built around them. The same Apennine ridge that supplies the mushrooms and the chestnuts runs southeast through the Val di Taro and into the Romagna hills, past stone villages with a single bar and a communal oven. The same lagoon that produces the eel widens into brick canals and salt flats east of Ferrara. The towns below hold recurring festivals, each one attached to one ingredient grown or caught nearby, and fewer people go.
Of the 45 communes we have mapped in Emilia-Romagna, 9 qualify as towns with a food festival: each holds a recurring food festival built around one local ingredient. The smallest, Premilcuore, has 692 residents.
Two more lists worth reading alongside this one: The best hidden towns with a food festival in Emilia-Romagna and The best small towns that eat well in Emilia-Romagna.
Premilcuore
Why visit Premilcuore
Premilcuore sits at 459 meters in the upper Rabbi valley on the Romagna-Tuscany border, fifty kilometers north of Florence and inside the Parco Nazionale delle Foreste Casentinesi. The Rocca and the medieval wall ring a centro storico of fewer than three hundred residents; the southern gate, Porta Fiorentina, still carries the marks of the 1375 surrender that put Premilcuore inside the Florentine state until 1923.
The town belonged to the Guidi counts of Modigliana from 1124, then to Caterina Sforza in the 1490s, then to Florence for five centuries. The Rabbi runs cold and clear through gorges below the borgo, with pools cut into the sandstone that the locals use through summer.
The municipality covers ninety-eight square kilometers, mostly old-growth beech and silver-fir forest inside the national park, with six people per square kilometer. Bandiera Arancione recognition arrived in the 2000s.
What to see in Premilcuore
- Rocca di Premilcuore. Medieval fortress at the top of the borgo, held by the Guidi counts from 1124 and later by Florence, now in partial restoration.
- Porta Fiorentina. Southern gate of the walled centro storico, the surviving original entry after the demolition of the Porta di Sotto on the north side.
- Chiesa di Santa Maria. Parish church inside the walls, restored after damage in the 1918 earthquake, with a Renaissance baptismal font.
How to get to Premilcuore
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Forlì is roughly 50 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June brings the Rabbi at full water and the forest in early green, the months to hike from the borgo to the Foreste Casentinesi ridge. July and August fill the river pools below town and touch thirty degrees in the centro storico; the upper forest stays cool. September and October are the chestnut and porcini season, with the colors changing on the beech slopes through November. Sagra del Cinghiale falls in August.
Portico e San Benedetto
Why visit Portico e San Benedetto
The Tuscan-Romagnolo Apennines place the borgo forty-five kilometers north of Florence and sixty southeast of Bologna, on the Montone river. The upper part holds the castle and the parish church, the middle the noble palazzi along Via Roma, the lower the artisan houses built vertically over four floors: a layout that follows the slope down from fortress to workshop.
Twelve kilometers upriver, the frazione of San Benedetto in Alpe holds the ruins of the abbey and the waterfall, joining the seat of Florentine administration to a stretch of the same valley given over to monastic settlement and to the poem that named its sound. The municipality lies inside the Parco Nazionale delle Foreste Casentinesi and carries the Bandiera Arancione.
What holds the two ends of the valley together is the Montone itself: one town built in tiers to govern the river's lower course, one abbey and one waterfall marking its upper reaches, twelve kilometers and several centuries apart but read here as a single territory.
What to see in Portico e San Benedetto
- Centro storico di Portico. The slope divides into castle quarter above, noble palazzi along Via Roma at mid-level, and artisan houses built vertically below.
- Palazzo Portinari. Fourteenth-century palace on Via Roma, by tradition the residence of Folco Portinari's family.
- Cascata dell'Acquacheta. The torrent falls among rocks near San Benedetto in Alpe, the muffled roar the detail Dante fixed in Inferno XVI.
How to get to Portico e San Benedetto
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Forlì is roughly 40 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June brings water in the Acquacheta and green on the Apennine ridges, the best months for the walk up from San Benedetto in Alpe. September and October give the chestnut harvest and the porcini in the Foreste Casentinesi; the Montone valley turns copper into November. July and August touch thirty degrees and the centro storico empties between two and five, though the river pools below the Ponte della Maestà are cold. Sagra della Tagliatella falls in August.
Pennabilli
Why visit Pennabilli
Pennabilli sits at 629 meters on the western slope of Monte Carpegna, at the head of the upper Marecchia valley, forty-five kilometers south of Rimini, inside the historic Montefeltro region. The town grew from the union of two hilltop castles, Penna on the Roccione and Billi on the Rupe, formally joined in 1350 by a stone of peace placed in the marketplace between them.
It has been the episcopal seat of the Diocese of Montefeltro since 1572, a status transferred from the older seat of San Leo. Tonino Guerra, long-time collaborator of Fellini, Antonioni and Tarkovsky, settled here in 1989 and spread his outdoor museum, I Luoghi dell'Anima, across both the town and the valley below it, linking the two former castles and their surroundings into a single walked route.
The garden of forgotten fruits opened the following year, and the antiques fair has continued each July since 1970, older than either. What the place adds up to is a town built twice: once by the stone that joined two castles into one commune, and once by the poet who joined the whole valley into a single museum without walls.
What to see in Pennabilli
- Orto dei Frutti Dimenticati. Walled garden below the Roccione, its paths lined with sculptures and installations set among the rescued fruit varieties.
- I Luoghi dell'Anima. Network of seven outdoor installations across Pennabilli and the Marecchia valley, conceived by Tonino Guerra between 1989 and 2012.
- Roccione and Rupe. Two rocky outcrops that carried the medieval castles of Penna and Billi, joined into a single commune in 1350.
How to get to Pennabilli
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Rimini is roughly 55 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through October is the open season in Pennabilli. The Marecchia valley turns green in late spring; the air at 629 meters stays cooler than the Rimini coast forty-five kilometers downstream. July is the busiest month, with the Mostra Mercato d'Antiquariato pulling crowds into the centro storico and the Carpegna trails open for hikers. Food Garden falls in August.
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.
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.
Borgo Val di Taro
Why visit Borgo Val di Taro
Borgo Val di Taro sits at 411 meters in the upper Taro valley, sixty-three kilometers southwest of Parma at the point where the province meets Liguria and Tuscany on the Apennine ridge. The town was a Roman waystation, then a possession of the Bobbio abbey, then of the Landi and Doria-Landi families through the medieval centuries.
Modern Borgotaro built itself around the porcini trade: the Boletus mushrooms gathered in the surrounding chestnut woods were already famous in the nineteenth century, exported by emigrants to the Americas, and in 1996 the European Union granted the Fungo di Borgotaro Protected Geographical Indication status, the first European recognition for a wild mushroom. The Consorzio per la Tutela del Porcino di Borgotaro was founded the same year.
The Cittaslow movement admitted the town in the 2000s. The September Fiera del Fungo di Borgotaro is the calendar event; population has dropped under seven thousand but the porcini trade still anchors the local economy.
What to see in Borgo Val di Taro
- Centro storico. Medieval town center along the Taro, with the Palazzo Tardiani, the Piazza Manara, and the porticos lining the old market street.
- Chiesa di Sant'Antonino. Sixteenth-century parish church with a Baroque interior, holding a fifteenth-century crucifix and a wooden image of the Madonna del Carmelo.
- Palazzo Tardiani. Eighteenth-century palace on the main street, now housing the municipal library and the cultural offices.
How to get to Borgo Val di Taro
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Parma is roughly 67 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June brings the Taro at full water and the chestnut woods in early green. September and October are the working months: the porcini emerge after the autumn rains, the Fiera del Fungo fills the centro on the last two weekends of September, and the trade carries the town's economy into November. July and August touch thirty degrees and the centro empties between two and five, though the river is cold enough for swimming. Porcigatone in festa falls in August.
Brisighella
Why visit Brisighella
Brisighella sits in the Lamone valley at 115 meters, forty-five kilometers southeast of Bologna, on the Apennine slope where Romagna meets the gypsum vein the UNESCO list added in 2023. Three selenite hills rise above the rooftops, each carrying a building: the Rocca Manfrediana, built in 1310 by Francesco Manfredi and reinforced by the Venetians after 1503; the Torre dell'Orologio, rebuilt in 1850 with a six-hour dial instead of twelve; and the Santuario del Monticino above the town.
The Via degli Asini runs through the centro storico as a covered elevated street, originally a fourteenth-century patrol walkway, later excavated into stables for the donkeys that hauled gypsum down from the quarries. The Nostrana di Brisighella olive, grown on the same hills, makes the Brisighello DOP oil that has carried European protection since 1996.
The town holds four institutional signals at once: Borghi più belli, Bandiera Arancione, Cittaslow, Città dell'Olio.
What to see in Brisighella
- Rocca Manfrediana. Hilltop fortress begun in 1310 by Francesco Manfredi of Faenza, reinforced by Astorgio II in the 1460s and held by Venice after 1503.
- Torre dell'Orologio. Clock tower rebuilt in 1850 on an earlier defensive structure, with a dial that marks six hours rather than the usual twelve.
- Santuario del Monticino. Eighteenth-century sanctuary on the third selenite hill, overlooking the town and the Lamone valley below.
How to get to Brisighella
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Forlì is roughly 55 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September through October are the working months in Brisighella. The hills around the Lamone valley turn green in spring and gold in autumn; the olive harvest in November fills the frantoi along the road to Faenza. July and August touch thirty-five degrees and the centro storico empties between two and five. Sagra Della Collina E Del Cinghiale falls in July.
Comacchio
Why visit Comacchio
Comacchio sits at sea level fifty kilometers east of Ferrara and forty south of the Adriatic delta proper. The town passed through Etruscan hands, then Byzantine rule under the Exarchate of Ravenna, then the Duchy of Ferrara, then Papal government until unification, a succession that left the centro storico layered rather than uniform.
The lagoons that surround it formed from tenth-century subsidence and later silting, and now run as a protected area inside the UNESCO inscription that covers the historic Ferrara plain, linking the town to the wider delta rather than setting it apart. The old town itself is water-built: thirteen islets tied together by bridges, canals threading between the Loggia del Grano and the Loggiato dei Cappuccini, with the bridge acting as the hinge where the inland waterways meet the canal running out toward the sea.
What the layers of rule left behind in stone, the lagoon and the tides have kept in motion around it: a town whose center is inseparable from the water that surrounds it, built up in pieces by whoever governed it at the time.
What to see in Comacchio
- Ponte dei Trepponti. Built around 1638 by Luca Danese of Ravenna, the bridge is the meeting point of three internal canals with the canal Pallotta and the symbol most visible from the water.
- Valli di Comacchio. The lagoon opens flat to the horizon at the edge of the Po Delta, its surface broken by fishing stations and the pink of the resident flamingo colonies.
- Museo Delta Antico. Archaeological museum opened in 2017 inside the eighteenth-century Ospedale degli Infermi, with finds from the Etruscan necropolis of Spina.
How to get to Comacchio
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Ravenna is roughly 45 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through September is the working season for Comacchio. Late May and June are best, when the lagoons hold migrating birds and the heat has not yet pushed visitor numbers into the August peak. The Valli boat tours run from spring to autumn, with flamingos visible all year round on the brackish edges. Festa di San Cassiano falls in August.
Ferrara
Why visit Ferrara
Ferrara is the city the Este family built and that the Po built around. For two centuries, from 1264 to 1598, the Este dukes ran their court from a moated brick fortress at the centre of town: Ariosto wrote the Orlando Furioso here, and the Ferrara school of painting flowered under Cosmè Tura.
In 1492, Duke Ercole I commissioned Biagio Rossetti to lay out a new quarter on a rational grid, with engineered perspectives and zoned districts, grafted onto the older medieval core rather than replacing it. That layering is still legible on the ground.
The old quarter, narrow and irregular, sits against Rossetti's planned extension, wide and gridded, and the two are stitched together inside a single ring of walls nine kilometres around. The scale is small enough that the whole centro can be crossed by bicycle in twenty minutes, and locals do: Ferrara has close to one bike per resident, and the medieval streets are narrow enough to keep cars mostly out.
The food carries its own local character apart from any of this: cappellacci di zucca, salama da sugo, pampepato at Christmas, and a Trebbiano-based wine grown on coastal sand dunes to the east. The Comacchio lagoons and the eel-fishing villages of the Po Delta are an easy half-day from the city, which served as the gateway to that whole territory.
What the plan and the walls add up to is a city that grew twice, once organically and once by design, and kept both versions intact side by side rather than letting one erase the other.
What to see in Ferrara
- Castello Estense. 1385 moated brick fortress at the very centre, the Este dukes' palace. The moat is still water-filled and the four corner towers are still walkable.
- Palazzo dei Diamanti. Rossetti's 1493 anchor of the new quarter, faced with 8,500 white-marble pyramid blocks. Now hosts major art exhibitions.
- 9 km of intact brick walls. The Renaissance ramparts ring the entire centro, and the top is a continuous cycling path with views over the moat and the Po valley.
How to get to Ferrara
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Ferrara is roughly 6 minutes away by road.
Our tip
Ferrara is brilliant in April–June and September–October. The Po valley gets hot and sticky July–August and the brick city radiates heat. October has the Buskers Festival (Europe's largest street-musician festival, late August now). Sagra Di San Lorenzo A Baura falls in July.
Ravenna
Why visit Ravenna
Ravenna sits four meters above sea level on the Adriatic coastal plain, ten kilometers from the sea and 105 kilometers east of Modena. Its position, low, flat, and close to the coast but not on it, made it defensible in a way landlocked cities were not: the surrounding marsh and lagoon kept armies at a distance while boats could still reach it.
That is why Honorius moved the Western Roman capital here in 402, why Theoderic kept it as his Ostrogothic seat, and why the Byzantine Exarchate held it for Constantinople until 751 as the last piece of imperial territory in northern Italy. Each of the three regimes built churches and paid for mosaic to decorate them, which is why the city's monuments read as a sequence rather than a single style: Roman, Gothic and Byzantine hands working in the same medium across a century and a half.
The municipality itself is split between this historic center and a stretch reaching the Adriatic, where Marina di Ravenna and Punta Marina hold Bandiera Blu beaches, so the same town that holds the fifth-century mausoleums also runs a public coastline. Population is 155,751.
What the churches add up to is less a city of monuments than a record of power changing hands, with each occupant leaving its faith in glass and gold on the walls rather than tearing down what came before.
What to see in Ravenna
- Basilica di San Vitale. Octagonal basilica holding the imperial mosaics of Justinian and Theodora in the presbytery and apse, the throne room of the sequence in gold and purple.
- Mausoleo di Galla Placidia. Small mausoleum next to the basilica, vaulted in a starry blue mosaic sky with gold cross and the symbols of the Evangelists, dim enough that the gold seems to generate its own light.
- Basilica di Sant'Apollinare Nuovo. Built by Theoderic as his palace chapel, the nave walls lined with continuous mosaic processions of saints and martyrs facing each other the full length of the church.
How to get to Ravenna
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Ravenna is roughly 3 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through September is the working window for Ravenna. The Adriatic warms enough for the beaches at Marina di Ravenna and Punta Marina to fill from late May through August, and the centro storico stays open for the Ravenna Festival in June and July. The mosaics need no weather, but July and August touch thirty-three degrees and the basilica interiors hold their heat. GiovinBacco. Sangiovese in Celebration falls in October.
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