Best time
10 towns that peak in October light
Comuni whose visiting calendar marks October as a best month. 10 towns shown, ranked by recognitions held.
Table no. 40 · Ranked by residents · 10 towns
October is harvest twice over: grapes in, olives next, the woods opening for truffles and chestnuts. The towns that peak now are the ones whose year is built around what the land does in autumn.
All marked best in October in our visiting calendar, ranked by recognitions. Book the first weekend; Italians know this month too.
- 1.Norcia4,544 residentsPerugia · UmbriaBirthplace of San Benedetto at 604 meters on a Sibillini plateau, leveled by the 2016 earthquake and rebuilt stone by stone.
- 2.Matera59,685 residentsMatera · BasilicataCave dwellings carved into limestone since the Paleolithic, called the shame of Italy in the 1950s and made European Capital of Culture in 2019.
- 3.San Casciano dei Bagni1,500 residentsSiena · TuscanyA hilltop borgo at 582 meters above 42 hot springs that produced the largest Etruscan bronze hoard of the last fifty years.
- 4.
Montalcino5,611 residentsSiena · TuscanyA walled hill town at 564 meters above the Val d'Orcia, the last fortress to hold out for the Sienese Republic and the birthplace of Brunello. - 5.Trevi8,063 residentsPerugia · UmbriaA walled town at 412 meters above the Spoleto valley, ringed by 200,000 olive trees that make it the Umbrian capital of olive oil.
- 6.Massa Marittima8,139 residentsGrosseto · TuscanyA medieval mining town at 380 meters, free commune from 1255 to 1337, whose cathedral holds the relics of San Cerbone.
- 7.Arquà Petrarca1,810 residentsPadova · VenetoThe Euganean Hills village where Francesco Petrarca spent his last four years and died in 1374, renamed in his honor in 1868.
- 8.Nemi1,877 residentsRoma · LazioThe smallest comune in the Castelli Romani, perched at 521 meters above a volcanic crater lake the Romans called the mirror of Diana.
- 9.
Suvereto2,955 residentsLivorno · TuscanyA stone borgo at 127 meters above the Val di Cornia, named for the cork oaks of its forests and ruled from the Rocca Aldobrandesca since 973. - 10.Malcesine3,603 residentsVerona · VenetoThe northernmost Veneto town on Lake Garda, where Goethe was nearly arrested for sketching the Castello Scaligero in September 1786.
FOUR OF THE TOP TEN ARE IN TUSCANY
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