Recognitions
The 10 southernmost Borghi più belli d'Italia
Borghi più belli d'Italia comuni, ranked by latitude, south to north. 10 towns shown.
Table no. 29 · Ranked by lat · 10 towns
At the other end of the list, the southernmost certified borghi in the catalogue: Sicilian Baroque towns, Calabrian rocks, places where the recognition arrived long after the emigration did.
South to north. The plaques here mark towns that stayed beautiful mostly because nobody had the money to modernize them badly.
- 1.Palazzolo Acreide37.07° NSiracusa · SicilyAn 8,000-resident hilltop town on the Iblei plateau at 670m, rebuilt entirely in late Baroque after the 1693 earthquake and founded over the Greek Akrai colony in 664 BC, with a Greek theatre and a cluster of rock carvings unlike anything else nearby.
- 2.Ferla37.13° NSiracusa · SicilyA baroque village at 500 meters on the Monte Lauro slopes, the western gateway to the UNESCO necropolis of Pantalica eleven kilometers downhill.
- 3.Buccheri37.16° NSiracusa · SicilyThe highest village in the province of Syracuse, world capital of Tonda Iblea olive oil at the 2015 Sol d'Oro.
- 4.Sutera37.52° NCaltanissetta · SicilyA medieval village clinging to the base of a 800-meter monolith in the Nisseno interior, with an Arab quarter and a sanctuary on the summit.
- 5.Agira37.60° NEnna · SicilyBirthplace of the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus and burial site of 490 Canadian soldiers of the 1943 campaign.
- 6.Calascibetta37.63° NEnna · SicilyA promontory town at 691 meters facing Enna across a ravine, founded in the ninth century as a Muslim camp to besiege Byzantine Henna.
- 7.Sambuca di Sicilia37.66° NAgrigento · SicilyAn Arab-founded hill town in the Belice valley, still called Zabut in living memory before 1923.
- 8.Gangi37.75° NPalermo · SicilyA Madonie hill town stacked in concentric rings at 1,011 meters, RAI's Borgo dei Borghi 2014 and the launching pad for the one-euro-house programme.
- 9.Sperlinga37.75° NEnna · SicilyA sandstone borgo at 750 meters in the Nebrodi foothills where a Norman castle and dwellings are carved into the rock as one continuous mass.
- 10.Troina37.77° NEnna · SicilyAt 1,121 meters on the Nebrodi ridge, the first capital and first bishopric the Normans set up in Sicily after taking it from the Arabs.
TEN OF THE TOP TEN ARE IN SICILY
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