The 8 best wine towns within 75 minutes of Rimini

1. Castrocaro Terme e Terra del Sole

Best for a soak. The comune has thermal baths.

59 min from Rimini · homes €1,200 to €1,550 a m² in the center · 6,505 people

Why visit Castrocaro Terme e Terra del Sole

The commune sits at 68 meters on the Montone river, ten kilometers southwest of Forlì in the Apennine foothills, and is the union of two distinct towns rather than one that simply grew. Castrocaro occupies the hill, its castle controlling the valley from above.

The fortress town on the plain below it was built in one campaign to project the authority of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany into Romagna, rather than accumulated over centuries like its neighbor. It stayed in Tuscany until 1923, when the provincial border finally moved and it passed to the province of Forlì.

The two halves of the commune read like two different centuries standing next to each other: one shaped by defense over generations, the other stamped out whole by a single ducal decision in 1564. What the pairing adds up to is a rare chance to see, in the space of one small commune, both how a medieval hill fortress evolved and what a Renaissance planner intended a fortress town to look like when built from nothing, a place called Terra del Sole.

Essentia is listed in Gambero Rosso.

What to see in Castrocaro Terme e Terra del Sole

• Rocca di Castrocaro. One of the oldest castles in Italy, standing on the hill above the centro with three concentric defensive rings, built to command the valley below.
• Terra del Sole. Two squares, four gates, and bastioned walls still standing, laid out with the geometric symmetry of a town designed on paper rather than grown over time.
• Palazzo dei Commissari e del Pretorio. On the central square, the residence of the Medici governors of Romagna Fiorentina until 1772, its facade facing the town's planned axis.

How to get to Castrocaro Terme e Terra del Sole

Rimini is about 59 min away by road.

Everything we know about Castrocaro Terme e Terra del Sole

2. Dozza

Best for a walk through the old town. It is on the list of Italy's most beautiful villages.

1 h 10 min from Rimini · homes €1,300 to €1,800 a m² in the center · 6,569 people

Why visit Dozza

Dozza sits on a low ridge at 190 meters above the Sellustra valley, six kilometers from Imola and twenty-five southeast of Bologna. The medieval village runs along a single curved spine of stone houses, with the Rocca Sforzesca closing the upper end.

Caterina Sforza rebuilt the fortress at the end of the fifteenth century on the remains of earlier Bolognese defences; the Malvezzi-Campeggi family turned it into a palazzo in the late sixteenth century, and the cellars now hold the Enoteca Regionale dell'Emilia-Romagna, which curates the wines of the whole region. The Biennale del Muro Dipinto began in 1960, when the opening of the Rocca to the public was paired with a contemporary-painting competition that worked directly on the village walls.

Over sixty years later, more than 100 murals cover the borgo, repainted and added to every other year by invited Italian and international artists. The municipality holds Borghi più belli and Bandiera Arancione recognition.

Population 6,569.

What to see in Dozza

• Rocca Sforzesca. Late fifteenth-century fortress rebuilt by Caterina Sforza, transformed into a palazzo by the Malvezzi-Campeggi family at the end of the 1500s.
• Muro Dipinto. Over 100 murals on the house walls of the medieval village, repainted and added to every two years since the first Biennale in 1960.
• Enoteca Regionale dell'Emilia-Romagna. Regional wine cellar inside the Rocca's underground levels, curating about 800 labels from across the region's DOC and DOCG zones.

How to get to Dozza

Rimini is about 1 h 10 min away by road.

Everything we know about Dozza

3. Brisighella

Best for olive oil. It belongs to the national association of olive oil towns.

1 h 5 min from Rimini · homes €1,100 to €1,500 a m² in the center · 7,181 people

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 designations at once: Borghi più belli, Bandiera Arancione, Cittaslow and 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

It has its own railway station. Rimini is about 1 h 5 min away by road.

Everything we know about Brisighella

4. Longiano

Best for a day out from Rimini. It is 30 min by car.

30 min from Rimini · homes €1,400 to €1,650 a m² in the center · 7,247 people

Why visit Longiano

Longiano sits at 179 meters on the first hill line between Cesena and Rimini, about fifteen kilometers inland from the beaches of Cesenatico and within sight of the Adriatic. The town shifted from the plain to the hill in the seventh and eighth centuries, when the local population moved up to escape Lombard raids, and the settlement that resulted is the hilltop borgo still walled today, with the castle at its center and the theater just below it.

Longiano passed back to the Church in 1581 and stayed under papal rule until 1859; the castle then became the town hall, a role it kept until 1989. The sanctuary stands apart from this hilltop cluster, built around its painted crucifix and held by Franciscan presence for over seven centuries, a separate thread of the town's history running alongside the Malatesta line and the civic one.

What ties the parts together is the hill itself: a defensive move made in the seventh and eighth centuries left Longiano with a compact center where a former ruling family's fortress, a nineteenth-century theater and a walled medieval borgo all sit within reach of each other, while the sanctuary's much older devotional history runs on its own separate track nearby.

Magnolia (MICHELIN and L'Espresso), Dei Cantoni (MICHELIN) and Terre Alte (MICHELIN and L'Espresso) are listed in food guides.

What to see in Longiano

• Castello Malatestiano. Fortified hilltop seat of the Malatesta of Rimini, later passing to the Church and then the commune. Its rooms now hold the Fondazione Tito Balestra, so the walls that once housed a ruling family now hold paintings, drawings and sculpture.
• Teatro Petrella. Sits just below the castle. Restored in 1986, it is known today for its acoustics inside the horseshoe-shaped hall.
• Santuario del Santissimo Crocifisso. Franciscan sanctuary built around a thirteenth-century crucifix painted on canvas laid on wood, with Franciscan friars in Longiano since 1277.

How to get to Longiano

Rimini is about 30 min away by road.

Everything we know about Longiano

5. Bertinoro

Best for a wine weekend. It belongs to the national association of wine towns.

45 min from Rimini · homes €1,350 to €1,550 a m² in the center · 11,102 people

Why visit Bertinoro

Bertinoro sits at 254 meters on Mount Cesubeo, a few kilometers south of the Via Emilia between Forlì and Cesena, the Romagna hills rolling toward the Adriatic on a clear day visible from the panoramic balcony locals call the Belvedere. The town's signature object is the Colonna delle Anella in Piazza della Libertà, a white-stone column with twelve iron rings, erected in 1300 by the noble families of the borgo so visitors arriving from the Via Emilia could tie their horse to a ring and be hosted by the family it belonged to.

The Albana grape grown on the surrounding slopes became, in 1987, the first Italian white wine to receive DOCG status; the artist Guerrino Bardeggia's Campana dell'Albana still rings to mark the opening of the harvest. Bertinoro joined the Borghi più belli d'Italia network in 2025.

The municipality holds two designations: Borghi più belli and Città del Vino. Population 11,102.

What to see in Bertinoro

• Colonna delle Anella. White-stone column with twelve iron rings, erected 1300 in Piazza della Libertà so visitors could tie their horse to the ring of the family who would host them.
• Rocca Vescovile. Tenth-century fortress on the summit of Mount Cesubeo, expanded by the Ordelaffi and Malatesta and used as the bishop's residence from the sixteenth century.
• Cattedrale di Santa Caterina. Sixteenth-century cathedral on the upper part of the borgo, rebuilt over an earlier Pieve dedicated to Saint Catherine of Alexandria.

How to get to Bertinoro

Rimini is about 45 min away by road.

Everything we know about Bertinoro

6. Castel San Pietro Terme

Best for a trip without a car. The train stops in the commune.

1 h 12 min from Rimini · homes €1,650 to €2,050 a m² in the center · 20,613 people

Why visit Castel San Pietro Terme

The town sits on the Sillaro river, which marks the historic border between Emilia and Romagna, twenty kilometers east of Bologna on the Via Emilia. It was founded as a Bolognese castrum in 1200, and the walled core still follows that original plan, with the river bridge on one edge and the road toward Imola leading out past the walls to the pilgrimage shrine beyond.

Castel San Pietro also joined the Città dell'Olio network for its hillside olive cultivation, a rural counterpart to the spa and civic life inside the walls. The Conservatorio Santa Caterina, founded in 1741, is one of the older female educational institutions still active in the region, sitting inside the same historic core as the gateway and the town hall.

The town reads as two things held together: a walled medieval seat on a border river, and a spa destination whose waters predate the walls by decades. Both draw on what was already there long before either was built up for visitors.

Il Grifone (MICHELIN), Osteria La Civichella (Gambero Rosso) and Gastarea (Gambero Rosso) are listed in food guides.

What to see in Castel San Pietro Terme

• Cassero. The gateway stands at the southern edge of the old walls, its stone face marking what was once the main entry into the castrum. Inside, the civic theater now occupies the space, so the structure that once controlled access to the town now hosts its audiences.
• Terme di Castel San Pietro. The complex draws on sulphurous, ferruginous and salt-bromine-iodide springs, with the first establishment opened in 1870. The waters run year-round from the same sources used centuries before the modern building existed.
• Santuario del Crocifisso del Piratello. Pilgrimage shrine on the Via Emilia toward Imola, built around a fifteenth-century crucifix and decorated by Innocenzo da Imola. It drew pilgrim traffic from across northern Emilia, standing apart from the walled town on the road out toward Romagna.

How to get to Castel San Pietro Terme

It has its own railway station. Rimini is about 1 h 12 min away by road.

Everything we know about Castel San Pietro Terme

7. Faenza

Best for everyday life on foot. Nine of the ten everyday services we look for are mapped within 500 meters of the center.

52 min from Rimini · homes €1,500 to €1,800 a m² in the center · 58,732 people

Why visit Faenza

Faenza sits at 34 meters on the Via Emilia between Bologna and Rimini, on the Lamone river fifty kilometers southeast of Bologna. The city gave its name to faïence: tin-glazed earthenware that emerged here in the late fourteenth century and reached its peak in the early sixteenth, when the bianchi di Faenza, white-on-white ceramics exported across Europe, set the standard for Renaissance maiolica.

The Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche, founded in 1908 by Gaetano Ballardini, holds 15,000 square meters of collections from 4000 BC to the present, with rooms dedicated to Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, Léger, Dalí, Burri, and Fontana. UNESCO named it a Monument Witness to a Culture of Peace in 2000.

The Cattedrale di San Pietro Apostolo, begun by Giuliano da Maiano in 1474, dominates Piazza della Libertà; Piazza del Popolo next door holds the medieval Palazzo del Podestà and the municipal palace. The Palio del Niballo, an equestrian competition between the five city rioni, runs every June.

La Baita (MICHELIN and Slow Food) and Manueli (Gambero Rosso) are listed in food guides.

What to see in Faenza

• Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche. Founded in 1908 by Gaetano Ballardini, 15,000 square meters spanning 4000 BC to contemporary work by Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, and Fontana.
• Cattedrale di San Pietro Apostolo. Renaissance cathedral begun by Giuliano da Maiano in 1474, completed by 1515, with sculptures by Benedetto da Maiano in the nave.
• Piazza del Popolo. Twin medieval square to Piazza della Libertà, framed by the Palazzo del Podestà and the porticos of the municipal palace.

How to get to Faenza

It has its own railway station. Rimini is about 52 min away by road.

Everything we know about Faenza

8. Imola

Best for a long lunch. Food guides list two tables here.

59 min from Rimini · homes €1,600 to €2,250 a m² in the center · 69,403 people

Why visit Imola

Imola is two cities sharing a name. The medieval one is a quietly handsome Romagna brick town 35 km southeast of Bologna along the Via Emilia, with the Rocca Sforzesca (remodeled in the 1470s and 1480s, partly under Caterina Sforza, the Tigress of Forlì, and taken by Cesare Borgia in 1499) anchoring the centro.

The Palazzo Tozzoni museum, the 11th-century Cattedrale di San Cassiano with its crypt of the city's patron, the Palazzo Sersanti on the central piazza, and the medieval grid of porticoed brick streets all read as a smaller-scale Bologna. The OTHER Imola is the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari: the 4.9-km F1 circuit on the south bank of the Santerno, built 1953 and named for Enzo Ferrari and his son Dino after Dino's death.

It hosted the San Marino Grand Prix from 1981 to 2006 and the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix from 2020 to 2025, and is the circuit where Ayrton Senna died in 1994 at the Tamburello corner. A memorial still stands there.

Outside race weekends the circuit is a public park; locals jog the track. The food is Romagna: piadina romagnola (the city is Città dell'Olio, and the local Brisighella Nostrana di Brisighella DOP olive oil is what dresses it), passatelli in brodo, cappelletti, Sangiovese di Romagna from the surrounding hills, and the local nocino walnut liqueur made by every grandmother in the foothills.

San Domenico (MICHELIN and L'Espresso) and Semplice (Gambero Rosso) are listed in food guides.

What to see in Imola

• Rocca Sforzesca. Caterina Sforza's four-towered brick fortress at the centro's edge, taken by Cesare Borgia in 1499. Museum of arms and ceramics inside.
• Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari. The 4.9-km F1 circuit on the Santerno. Senna memorial at Tamburello. Open as a public park outside race weekends: locals jog the track.
• Cattedrale di San Cassiano + crypt. 11th-c cathedral with the city patron's crypt; the Madonna del Piratello pilgrimage church just outside the walls is a major regional sanctuary.

How to get to Imola

It has its own railway station. Rimini is about 59 min away by road.

Everything we know about Imola