Hill towns
Hill towns in Liguria
10 towns
The ridge and hilltop borghi, sitting around 400 meters. Vineyards below, one road up, walkable once you are there. Good in almost any season.
The towns
Perinaldo
Province: Imperia · 572 m
A ridge village at 572 meters, birthplace of Giovanni Domenico Cassini and home to a working astronomical observatory in his name.
Seborga
Province: Imperia · 517 m
A hilltop village at 517 meters above Bordighera that calls itself a principality, 284 residents, its own coins and stamps since 1963.
Millesimo
Province: Savona · 429 m
A fortified borgo at 429 meters, where Napoleon broke the Austro-Sardinian army in April 1796.
Castelvecchio di Rocca Barbena
Province: Savona · 420 m
A stone village of 126 residents at 420 meters, built into the southern foot of a 1,142-meter limestone outcrop.
Sassello
Province: Savona · 381 m
A baroque borgo at 381 meters in the Parco del Beigua, split by a stream and known for a soft almond biscuit invented in its own kitchens.
Ceriana
Province: Imperia · 369 m
A medieval village at 369 meters above the Valle Armea, inland from Sanremo, built on the Roman castrum that gave it its name.
Varese Ligure
Province: La Spezia · 358 m
The Val di Vara's medieval seat at 358 meters, the first European municipality with ISO 14001 certification, anchor of Italy's largest organic district.
Campo Ligure
Province: Genova · 342 m
A Spinola borgo at 342 meters in the Stura valley north of Genova, the last working center for gold and silver filigree in Italy.
Apricale
Province: Imperia · 273 m
A medieval hill village in the Nervia Valley, named for the Latin apricus, sunny, with a tenth-century castle shaped like a lizard on the rock.
Pieve di Teco
Province: Imperia · 240 m
A planned market town founded in 1233 in the middle Arroscia valley, with porticoed Corso Ponzoni and one of the smallest theaters in Italy.
From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns
Ispica
Province: Ragusa
A Val di Noto Baroque hilltown on the southern Iblei plateau anchored by the 13-km Cava d'Ispica canyon, its walls cut with rock tombs, catacombs and cave dwellings, one of the best-known cave-necropolis sites in Sicily.
Giulianova
Province: Teramo
Coastal town split between hilltop Paese at 68 meters and the Lido below, one rebuilt as a Renaissance ideal city, the other grown around a working fishing fleet.
Sirmione
Province: Brescia
A 4-kilometer peninsula reaching into the southern Garda, its tip closed by a fortified port and a Roman villa.
Molveno
Province: Trento
The village at the north end of a deep blue alpine lake, with a pale limestone range rising straight out of the water.
Taurasi
Province: Avellino
An Irpinia wine village at 400 meters above the Calore valley, the southern home of Aglianico called Barolo of the South.