Recognitions
10 Bandiera Arancione towns nobody has heard of
The smallest comuni holding the Touring Club's Bandiera Arancione. Population stands in for fame here: the smaller the town, the shorter its reach. 10 towns shown.
Table no. 25 · Ranked by residents · 10 towns
The Touring Club's Bandiera Arancione goes to small inland towns that meet a long checklist of quality standards. It is Italy's most rigorous obscure honor: hard to earn, unknown outside the country.
We took the smallest holders in our catalogue, on the theory that population is a fair proxy for fame. The flag flies anyway.
- 1.Castelvecchio di Rocca Barbena130 residentsSavona · Liguria
- 2.Usseaux175 residentsTorino · PiedmontA Val Chisone village at 1,416 meters with four scattered borgate and more than forty murals painted across the stone facades.
- 3.Seborga276 residentsImperia · Liguria
- 4.Civitella Alfedena285 residentsL'Aquila · Abruzzo
- 5.Vallo di Nera345 residentsPerugia · Umbria
- 6.Labro355 residentsRieti · Lazio
- 7.Triora373 residentsImperia · LiguriaThe witches' village at 776 meters in the upper Valle Argentina, where the Inquisition put around 200 women on trial between 1587 and 1589.
- 8.Bova416 residentsReggio di Calabria · Calabria
- 9.Fenestrelle476 residentsTorino · PiedmontA village below the largest alpine fortress in Europe, three kilometers of stone climbing the ridge above it.
- 10.Etroubles478 residentsAosta Valley · Aosta Valley
THREE OF THE TOP TEN ARE IN LIGURIA
The slow-trip planner
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Answer five questions. We will shape a geographically coherent slow trip from the 1,000 Italian towns most travelers skip. Yours to save and share.
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