Hill towns
Hill towns in Lombardy
9 towns
The ridge and hilltop borghi, sitting around 400 metres. Vineyards below, one road up, walkable once you are there. Good in almost any season.
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 365-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.
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 258-person hill village at 400 meters, built around a castle that today holds a contemporary art collection.
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.
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.
The slow-trip planner
Plan a slow trip across the towns travelers skip.
Answer five questions. We will shape a geographically coherent slow trip from the 1,000 Italian towns most travelers skip. Yours to save and share.
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.