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10 winter sea towns
Coastal comuni whose visiting calendar keeps December through February open. 10 towns shown, ranked by recognitions held.
Table no. 44 · Ranked by residents · 10 towns
The Mediterranean does not close in December, only its beach clubs do. A winter sea town offers the original quiet: storm watching, fish at half the summer price, walks on sand that shows only your footprints.
These coastal comuni keep December through February open in our calendar. Ranked by recognitions held.
- 1.Levanto5,140 residentsLa Spezia · LiguriaThe sixth Cinque Terre, a beach town and Cittaslow at the gateway of the national park, with a surf break and a striped Gothic church.
- 2.Maruggio5,250 residentsTaranto · ApuliaA fortified Borghi più Belli borgo on a low Ionian hill in Taranto province, built around a Knights of Malta commanderie that ran the Order's southern Italian affairs for six centuries.
- 3.Livorno152,914 residentsLivorno · TuscanyTuscany's working port and Medici-planned 'New City' — a 16th-century planned town built on reclaimed coast, with a Venice-like canal quarter, the Quattro Mori monument, and a 1.5-km seafront promenade that locals call the world's most beautiful balcony.
- 4.Diano7,794 residentsImperia · LiguriaA twin destination on the Riviera dei Fiori: a medieval hilltop borgo above and a beach resort below, sharing one bay and one olive valley.
- 5.Menfi11,814 residentsAgrigento · SicilySicily's triple-signal western coast town: 11,800 residents on a low ridge above 9 km of protected sand at Porto Palo, backed by cellars and olive groves that between them carry Italy's three major small-town quality marks.
- 6.
Vernazza729 residentsLa Spezia · LiguriaThe middle village of the coast, the only one with a natural harbor, buried under four meters of mud in October 2011. - 7.Borgio Verezzi2,048 residentsSavona · LiguriaTwo villages joined under one comune in 1933: Borgio on the coast below, Verezzi on the pink-stone hill above.
- 8.Rocca Imperiale3,204 residentsCosenza · CalabriaFrederick II's Hohenstaufen fortress at the Calabria–Basilicata border, a Borgo più Bello d'Italia perched on a hill above the Ionian coast, with the castello at the summit and the locally-grown limone di Rocca Imperiale IGP scenting the orchards.
- 9.Celle Ligure4,873 residentsSavona · LiguriaA Riviera di Ponente beach town with kilns firing since the 1600s and a ceramic on its parish church façade.
- 10.
Camogli4,977 residentsGenova · LiguriaA fishing village on the Golfo Paradiso whose nineteenth-century fleet of a thousand white sails made it Italy's third maritime power in the Mediterranean.
SIX OF THE TOP TEN ARE IN LIGURIA
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