Hill towns
Hill towns in Lombardia
13 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
Tignale
Province: Brescia · 560 m
A six-hamlet commune on a high terrace above Lake Garda's western shore, anchored by a clifftop sanctuary and the last working limonaie north of Salò.
Zavattarello
Province: Pavia · 525 m
A Val Tidone borgo at 525 meters clinging to a ridge below a tenth-century Apennine fortress with walls four meters thick.
Fortunago
Province: Pavia · 482 m
A 368-resident village on a 482-meter ridge, with stone façades, porphyry streets and the production zone of Salame di Varzi at its doorstep.
Bienno
Province: Brescia · 445 m
A medieval ironworking village where water hammers driven by the Grigna stream have shaped wrought iron since the 1200s.
Tirano
Province: Sondrio · 441 m
A Valtellina town at 441 meters where a railway from across the border reaches Italy, beneath terraced Nebbiolo vineyards.
Varzi
Province: Pavia · 416 m
A medieval Malaspina town at 416 meters in the Staffora valley of the Oltrepò Pavese, the seat of one of Italy's first DOP cured meats.
Montesegale
Province: Pavia · 400 m
A 244-person hill village at 400 meters, built around a castle that today holds a contemporary art collection.
San Pellegrino Terme
Province: Bergamo · 358 m
A Liberty-era spa town in the Val Brembana, built around sulfur springs that give the world its mineral water.
Chiavenna
Province: Sondrio · 333 m
An Alpine town at 333 meters on the Mera river, the historical Splügen Pass crossroads named for its key position and its rock-cellar crotti.
Sondrio
Province: Sondrio · 307 m
The capital of Valtellina at 307 meters, where Castel Masegra watches over terraced vineyards that produce Sassella and Grumello Nebbiolo.
Bergamo
Province: Bergamo · 249 m
A two-city Lombard capital where a Venetian walled hilltown sits 85 meters above its modern twin on the plain, 45 kilometers northeast of Milan.
Darfo Boario Terme
Province: Brescia · 218 m
A spa town where the Oglio leaves the mountains for the plain, next to one of Italy's oldest rock-engraving sites.
Polpenazze del Garda
Province: Brescia · 207 m
A Valtenesi hilltop commune above a drained lake basin, where Italy's oldest continuous wine fair has poured Groppello since 1947.
From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns
Rovereto
Province: Trento
The Vallagarina city at 204 meters where a Venetian-Austrian castle holds the Italian war museum and a domed contemporary art museum holds Italy's largest collection of its kind in the Alps.
Vernasca
Province: Piacenza
A Val d'Arda commune in the Piacenza Apennines, holding the walled village of Vigoleno and one of the most compact castled borghi in Emilia.
Innichen
Province: Bolzano
An Alta Pusteria town at 1,175 meters on the Austrian border, built around a Romanesque church and facing the Dolomites to the south.
Minervino Murge
Province: Barletta-Andria-Trani
A ridge town at 445 meters where the Murgia plateau breaks off into open view, inside the national park that carries its name.
Castelvetro di Modena
Province: Modena
A 152-meter hill borgo south of Modena whose checkerboard piazza sits above the slopes that grow Lambrusco Grasparossa.