For foodies

Where to eat well in Lazio

30 towns

Towns holding at least one place a guide put its name to. The ones several guides agree on come first.

Tivoli
Province: Roma · 235 m
A travertine town on the Aniene falls twenty-five kilometers east of Rome, holding two separate UNESCO sites: Hadrian's villa below and the Villa d'Este above.
Caprarola
Province: Viterbo · 510 m
A Cimini hill town above Lago di Vico, dominated by the pentagonal Villa Farnese that Vignola built for the Farnese cardinals between 1559 and 1573.
Acquapendente
Province: Viterbo · 420 m
The northernmost town in Lazio, at 420 meters above the Paglia, named in 964 for its waterfalls.
Viterbo
Province: Viterbo · 326 m
The medieval capital of the Tuscia, papal seat for five popes between 1257 and 1281 and home to the longest conclave in Church history.
Terracina
Province: Latina · 24 m
The Volscian Anxur, where a temple to Jupiter sits above a port cut through stone.
Arpino
Province: Frosinone · 450 m
The Volscian-Roman hill town in the Liri valley that produced Marius and Cicero, with a pre-Roman acropolis above the modern center.
Castel Gandolfo
Province: Roma · 426 m
A papal town on the rim of Lake Albano's volcanic crater, summer residence of the popes since 1626.
Fondi
Province: Latina · 9 m
The plain town between the Ausoni and Aurunci mountains where the Caetani built a castle in the middle of farmland instead of on a hill.
Gaeta
Province: Latina · 2 m
The promontory port where a Bourbon kingdom fell in February 1861 and the south of Italy stopped existing as a state.
Ponza
Province: Latina · 5 m
The main island of the Pontine archipelago, a volcanic crescent 40 km off Formia with white tuff cliffs, Roman fishpond tunnels at Pilato, Cala Feola's natural pools, and a 3,200-resident borgo curving around a horseshoe harbour painted in 18th-century Bourbon-pastel.
Sabaudia
Province: Latina · 17 m
A rationalist city built in 253 days on drained Pontine marshland, founded 15 April 1934 between Lago di Paola and the Tyrrhenian dunes.
Ariccia
Province: Roma · 412 m
The Castelli Romani town where a single Baroque architect's ensemble sits on a volcanic crater rim above Rome, and Saturday lunch means porchetta.
Capodimonte
Province: Viterbo · 364 m
The lakefront Farnese stronghold on a peninsula jutting into Europe's largest volcanic crater lake, with an extra-virgin olive oil tradition recognized by Città dell'Olio.
Magliano Sabina
Province: Rieti · 222 m
A 222-meter Sabine town on a Tiber terrace, cathedral seat of the Sabina diocese on the Lazio-Umbria border.
Bracciano
Province: Roma · 280 m
The Lazio lake town with the eighth-largest lake in Italy below it and one of the best-preserved Renaissance castles in the country above it.
Atina
Province: Frosinone · 500 m
A polygonal-walled town at the foot of the Mainarde, and the DOC that makes Cabernet in central Italy.
Bassano in Teverina
Province: Viterbo · 304 m
A tufa-spur borgo of 1,260 above the Tiber valley between Lazio and Umbria, with a clock tower that hides an eleventh-century animated bell tower.
Calcata
Province: Viterbo · 220 m
A tufa-cliff village forty kilometers north of Rome, condemned and abandoned in the 1930s, then occupied by artists and never left.
Castro dei Volsci
Province: Frosinone · 385 m
A Ciociaria hilltop borgo at 385 meters in the Sacco valley, named for the pre-Roman Volsci.
Cerveteri
Province: Roma · 81 m
An Etruscan capital seven kilometers inland from the Tyrrhenian coast, with the Banditaccia necropolis holding 1,000 tombs in the largest ancient cemetery in the Mediterranean.
Collalto Sabino
Province: Rieti · 980 m
A 980-meter Sabine borgo dominated by a Barberini baronial castle, with a 360-degree panorama from the keep.
Picinisco
Province: Frosinone · 725 m
A medieval village at 725 meters on the eastern edge of Lazio, the source of much of Italo-Scottish emigration.
✷ We've been
Ronciglione
Province: Viterbo · 441 m
A tufa-brick borgo above Lake Vico, fortified by the Prefects of Vico and crowned Borgo dei Borghi in 2023.
San Donato Val di Comino
Province: Frosinone · 728 m
A medieval village at 728 meters at the gateway to Forca d'Acero, the pass into the Abruzzo National Park.
San Felice Circeo
Province: Latina · 100 m
A medieval borgo on the flank of a promontory that Homer made the home of Circe in the Odyssey.
Subiaco
Province: Roma · 408 m
The Aniene valley town where Benedict spent three years in a cliff cave, and where Italy's first printed book appeared in 1465.
Sutri
Province: Viterbo · 291 m
An Etruscan and Roman town on a tuff spur, with a rock-cut amphitheater carved straight from the volcanic stone of the Cimini.
Tarquinia
Province: Viterbo · 133 m
An Etruscan capital on a Maremma ridge whose 6,000 rock-cut tombs at Monterozzi hold the largest body of pre-Roman painting in the Mediterranean.
Velletri
Province: Roma · 332 m
The Castelli Romani town where Augustus grew up, now the largest wine commune of its hills.
Ventotene
Province: Latina · 18 m
The smaller of the inhabited Pontine Islands, a flat three-kilometer tuff platform southeast of Ponza.

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From elsewhere in Italy

Five more towns to discover