Lake towns
Lake towns in Piedmont
11 towns
Towns on the northern lakes and the quieter volcanic ones further south. Water without the coast road.
Gozzano
Province: Novara · 367 m
The town at the southern tip of Lake Orta, marked by a basilica and a twelfth-century signaling tower above the water.
Omegna
Province: Verbano-Cusio-Ossola · 295 m
The Lake Orta town at 295 meters where Bialetti, Lagostina and Alessi turned a steel valley into Italy's household-goods capital.
Orta San Giulio
Province: Novara · 294 m
A promontory facing an islet basilica, with a UNESCO complex of Francis-of-Assisi chapels on the hill above.
Cannero Riviera
Province: Verbano-Cusio-Ossola · 225 m
A commune of 900 on the western shore, fronted by three rocky islets whose Borromeo ruins are the town's signature view.
Cannobio
Province: Verbano-Cusio-Ossola · 214 m
A medieval lake town at 214 meters on Maggiore's western shore, host to one of the largest Sunday markets on the lake.
Arona
Province: Novara · 212 m
A town at the southern tip of a lake, watched over by a colossus finished in 1698.
Baveno
Province: Verbano-Cusio-Ossola · 205 m
A lake town at 205 meters whose quarries supplied columns for Milan's cathedral and a major basilica in Rome.
Mergozzo
Province: Verbano-Cusio-Ossola · 204 m
A village on the western shore of a small lake cut off from its larger neighbor by river sediment, with a centuries-old elm on its lakefront piazza.
Ghiffa
Province: Verbano-Cusio-Ossola · 201 m
A Lake Maggiore lakeside village facing the Lombard shore, with a UNESCO sanctuary on the slope above it and a century of hat-making behind it.
Stresa
Province: Verbano-Cusio-Ossola · 200 m
A Lake Maggiore resort town at 200 meters, facing the Borromean Islands and running the Settimane Musicali since 1962.
Belgirate
Province: Verbano-Cusio-Ossola · 199 m
A small Lake Maggiore village at 199 meters whose Chiesa Vecchia di Santa Maria has held its 11th-century Romanesque bell tower for nine hundred years.
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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.