Mountain towns
Mountain towns in Piemonte
10 towns
Towns inside a named range: the Alps, the Dolomites, the Apennines, the Pollino, the Aspromonte. All above 500 meters and half above 800, where the season decides the trip.
The towns
Usseaux
Province: Torino · 1,416 m
A Val Chisone village at 1,416 meters with four scattered borgate and more than forty murals painted across the stone facades.
Macugnaga
Province: Verbano-Cusio-Ossola · 1,327 m
A Walser village at 1,327 meters at the foot of the east wall of Monte Rosa, founded in the 13th century by colonists from Valais.
Ostana
Province: Cuneo · 1,280 m
An 87-resident Occitan-speaking alpine borgo at 1,280m in the upper Po valley, rebuilt from near-abandonment into an architecturally celebrated mountain village with a direct frontal view of Monviso.
Alagna Valsesia
Province: Vercelli · 1,191 m
A Walser village at 1,191 meters, at the head of the Valsesia, known to off-piste skiers worldwide.
Fenestrelle
Province: Torino · 1,154 m
A village below the largest alpine fortress in Europe, three kilometers of stone climbing the ridge above it.
Limone Piemonte
Province: Cuneo · 1,000 m
A ski village at 1,000 meters in the Vermenagna valley, the southern end of the Alps where the Tenda tunnel drops toward the Côte d'Azur.
Ronco Canavese
Province: Torino · 956 m
A 383-inhabitant Francoprovenzale village at 956 meters on the Piemonte side of the Gran Paradiso National Park.
Ormea
Province: Cuneo · 736 m
A heart-shaped Ligurian-Alps borgo at 736 meters in the upper Tanaro valley, near the border with Liguria.
Garessio
Province: Cuneo · 621 m
A four-borgo medieval town at 621 meters on the Liguria-Piemonte border, built on the salt road and the source of the Acqua San Bernardo.
Villar San Costanzo
Province: Cuneo · 605 m
A Val Maira village at 605 meters, with a reserve of 479 mushroom-shaped erosion columns.
From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns
Castellaro Lagusello
Province: Mantova
A walled medieval borgo south of Lake Garda, ringed by 13th-century stone walls and overlooking a small heart-shaped natural lake that gives the village its second name and most-photographed silhouette.
Magione
Province: Perugia
A hill town east of Trasimeno built around a medieval Order's fortified base.
Toirano
Province: Savona
A medieval village at the mouth of the Val Varatella, four kilometers inland from Loano, with karst caves holding 14,000-year-old human footprints.
Lavagna
Province: Genova
The Tigullio town that gave its name to slate, and its counts to a line of popes.
Gradara
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
The walled hill borgo at 142 meters above the Adriatic where Dante set the deaths of Paolo and Francesca, with one of Italy's best-preserved castles.