Hill towns
Hill towns in Sardinia
18 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.
Mamoiada
Province: Nuoro · 644 m
The Barbagia village where the Mamuthones come out on January 17, twelve men in black sheepskins carrying thirty kilos of cowbells.
Tempio Pausania
Province: Sassari · 566 m
The granite capital of Gallura at the foot of Monte Limbara, known for cork, Vermentino DOCG and the largest Carnival in northern Sardinia.
Atzara
Province: Nuoro · 553 m
A Mandrolisai wine village on the western Gennargentu, painted in the early twentieth century by Spanish costumbristas and the Sardinian Scuola di Atzara.
Orroli
Province: Sud Sardegna · 550 m
A Sarcidano village at 550 meters on the Pranemuru basalt plateau, home of the Nuraghe Arrubiu, the only five-tower nuraghe in Sardinia.
Aggius
Province: Sassari · 514 m
A Gallura granite village at 514 meters under the Monti di Aggius, with the largest ethnographic museum in Sardegna and three centuries of bandit history.
Santu Lussurgiu
Province: Oristano · 503 m
A Montiferru village at 503 meters where the Carnival horse race runs through a steep stone street and saddlery has been made since 1923.
Baunei
Province: Nuoro · 480 m
A village at 480 meters on the Monte Santo limestone ridge, its territory holding a national-monument beach and a trek regularly called Italy's hardest.
Bolotana
Province: Nuoro · 472 m
A Marghine hill village at 472 meters between mountain and Tirso valley, with a Welsh railway engineer's villa hidden in a four-hectare exotic garden.
Jerzu
Province: Nuoro · 450 m
The Cannonau capital of Ogliastra, perched at 450 meters in the eastern Ogliastra interior.
Cuglieri
Province: Oristano · 428 m
A Montiferru town at 428 meters, with the first minor basilica in Sardegna above it and the ruins of Punic Cornus below.
Montresta
Province: Oristano · 405 m
A Planargia hill village of 438 people founded in 1746 by Maniot Greek families who left Corsica for new land in Sardinia.
Dorgali
Province: Nuoro · 387 m
A Supramonte town at 387 meters, with a coastal frazione, a Nuragic village hidden in a sinkhole, and a limestone gorge cut through the massif to the south.
Oliena
Province: Nuoro · 380 m
A Supramonte village at the foot of the massif's highest peak, source of Cannonau Nepente, base camp for Tiscali and the Lanaitto valley.
Samugheo
Province: Oristano · 380 m
Sardinia's textile-weaving capital: a 2,757-resident Mandrolisai borgo where the MURATS regional textile museum, the Tessingiu woven-art biennale, and an active community of weavers on traditional looms keep a knot-stitch tradition alive.
Seneghe
Province: Oristano · 305 m
An olive-oil village on the eastern slope of Montiferru, 25 km from Oristano, that doubles as Sardegna's poetry capital each September.
Sedini
Province: Sassari · 295 m
A 1,245-resident Anglona borgo built around a prehistoric rock-cut tomb complex carved into a limestone outcrop inside the village itself, later reused as a Romanesque church and now a small museum.
Barumini
Province: Sud Sardegna · 202 m
A Marmilla village whose nuraghe became Sardegna's first UNESCO site.
Iglesias
Province: Sud Sardegna · 200 m
Sardinia's medieval mining capital: a 25,000-resident Pisan-Aragonese walled town in the Sulcis-Iglesiente metalliferous district, with an intact Gothic centro storico and UNESCO-recognised mining heritage at Monteponi just outside town.
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From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Cicala
Province: Catanzaro
A village of 887 people at 829 meters, founded in 1616 by farmers asking for land.
Fossombrone
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
An inland Marchigiano town on the Metauro river, layered over a Roman colony with a Renaissance ducal court rising above it.
Bagnoli del Trigno
Province: Isernia
The 'Pearl of Molise', a 637-resident borgo built into and around a massive limestone outcrop above the Trigno valley, with a medieval castle rebuilt on its summit.
Varenna
Province: Lecco
A fishing village founded in 769 on the Lecco arm of Lake Como, with a steep grid of streets falling into the water.
Rocca di Botte
Province: L'Aquila
At 750 meters on the Carseolani slopes between Abruzzo and Lazio, the birthplace of an eleventh-century hermit and a fief of the Colonna.