For foodies
Where to eat well in Emilia-Romagna
22 towns
Towns holding at least one place a guide put its name to. The ones several guides agree on come first.
Ferrara
Province: Ferrara · 9 m
A Renaissance capital planned on a grid rather than grown by accident, small enough to cross by bicycle in twenty minutes, and ringed by walls that still stand whole.
Cesenatico
Province: Forlì-Cesena · 3 m
An Adriatic fishing port whose canal was redrawn on commission from a Borgia patron, with ten historic sailboats moored as a floating museum.
Imola
Province: Bologna · 47 m
Bologna's Romagna twin — a medieval brick centro anchored by the Caterina Sforza-fortified Rocca, with the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari (the Imola F1 circuit) wrapping the Santerno river at the southern edge of town.
Parma
Province: Parma · 57 m
A 57-meter Po-plain capital on the Via Emilia, where Correggio painted the Duomo dome and Parmigiano ages in vaults across the province.
Ravenna
Province: Ravenna · 4 m
A 4-meter coastal capital of three successive empires, with eight UNESCO mosaic monuments from the fifth and sixth centuries.
Bagno di Romagna
Province: Forlì-Cesena · 491 m
A 491-meter thermal town at the head of the Savio valley, drawing on springs that have run at 47 degrees since Roman times.
Longiano
Province: Forlì-Cesena · 179 m
A 179-meter Malatesta borgo on the hills between Cesena and Rimini, holding a major twentieth-century art collection inside the family castle.
Faenza
Province: Ravenna · 34 m
The city that gave its name to faïence, with a tin-glazed maiolica tradition since the fourteenth century and the world ceramics museum since 1908.
Cervia
Province: Ravenna · 2 m
The Adriatic salt town with 827 hectares of working saline, planned in 1697 around a grid of salt workers' houses.
Castel San Pietro Terme
Province: Bologna · 75 m
A 75-meter thermal town east of Bologna, its sulphurous waters in use since 1137.
Santarcangelo di Romagna
Province: Rimini · 42 m
A Via Emilia hill town on the Marecchia plain, with over 150 tufa caves under the centro and a Malatesta fortress on its summit.
Sasso Marconi
Province: Bologna · 128 m
A 128-meter pre-Apennine town at the confluence of the Setta and Reno, renamed in 1938 for the radio pioneer whose family estate stands in its Pontecchio frazione.
Busseto
Province: Parma · 40 m
A 40-meter town where Giuseppe Verdi grew up, with a 300-seat opera house in the Rocca he refused to enter.
Pennabilli
Province: Rimini · 629 m
A 629-meter Montefeltro borgo between the Roccione and the Rupe, remade as an open-air museum after 1989.
Bobbio
Province: Piacenza · 272 m
A 272-meter Trebbia-valley town built around an abbey founded in 614, named Borgo dei Borghi by RAI in 2019.
Castelvetro di Modena
Province: Modena · 152 m
A 152-meter hill borgo south of Modena whose checkerboard piazza sits above the slopes that grow Lambrusco Grasparossa.
Castell'Arquato
Province: Piacenza · 224 m
A 224-meter hilltop borgo in the Val d'Arda, kept intact since the tenth century and crowned by Luchino Visconti's 1342 fortress.
Castrocaro Terme e Terra del Sole
Province: Forlì-Cesena · 68 m
A pairing of two towns: a ninth-century fortress on a hill and Cosimo I de' Medici's planned Renaissance garrison town on the plain below, founded 1564.
Montefiore Conca
Province: Rimini · 385 m
A 385-meter Malatesta hilltop above the Conca valley, dominated by a fourteenth-century fortress that was once a summer residence of the lords of Rimini.
Montegridolfo
Province: Rimini · 290 m
A walled borgo of fewer than a thousand residents on the Romagna-Marche border, held alternately by the Malatesta and the Montefeltro through the fifteenth century.
Portico e San Benedetto
Province: Forlì-Cesena · 309 m
A three-tier medieval borgo at 309 meters on the Montone river, capital of Florence's Romagna territories from 1386.
Sestola
Province: Modena · 1,020 m
A 1,020-meter Apennine town in the Frignano, with a Lombard-era castle above and central Italy's largest ski domain on the slopes.
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From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Taurasi
Province: Avellino
An Irpinia wine village at 400 meters above the Calore valley, the southern home of Aglianico called Barolo of the South.
Ulassai
Province: Nuoro
The highest village in Ogliastra, at 775 meters on a ledge beneath the Tacchi.
Udine
Province: Udine
The historic capital of Friuli, built around a man-made castle hill.
Framura
Province: La Spezia
Five hamlets between sea level and 300 meters on the Riviera di Levante, with Byzantine watchtowers built against Saracen incursions.
Corvara in Badia
Province: Bolzano
The Ladin centre of Alta Badia at 1,568 metres, at the foot of the Sassongher, on the four-pass Sellaronda ski circuit.