Borghi Autentici
Borghi Autentici in Calabria
11 towns
Calabria holds 11 Borghi Autentici sites inside our catalogue. They are in the Cosenza, Catanzaro, and Crotone provinces.
The three most recognized in our catalogue are Roseto Capo Spulico, Saracena, and Montegiordano. 8 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
The towns
Roseto Capo Spulico
Province: Cosenza · 217 m
A castle on a rock above the Ionian, in a village that began as a satellite of Sybaris in the seventh century BC.
Saracena
Province: Cosenza · 606 m
A 606-meter Pollino borgo named for the Saracens said to have settled it around 900 AD, and protected by Slow Food for a passito Moscato traced to the sixteenth century.
Montegiordano
Province: Cosenza · 619 m
A 619-meter hill town with a hunting castle and a centro storico turned into a gallery of murals.
Alessandria del Carretto
Province: Cosenza · 1,043 m
The highest village in the Pollino at 1,043 meters, the only Italian commune carrying its founder's full name, with a fir-tree ritual every 3 May.
Laino Borgo
Province: Cosenza · 271 m
A village on the Lao river canyon, at the western entrance to Pollino National Park, known as Calabria's rafting capital.
Albidona
Province: Cosenza · 810 m
A hill village at 810 meters between the Pollino and the Ionian, identified by ancient writers as Leutarnia, the city founded by Calchas after Troy.
Cicala
Province: Catanzaro · 829 m
A village of 841 people at 829 meters, founded in 1616 by farmers asking for land.
Cirò
Province: Crotone · 351 m
A hill village at 351 meters above the Ionian, the historic heart of Calabria's oldest wine appellation.
Gizzeria
Province: Catanzaro · 600 m
An Arbëreshë hill village at 600 meters above the Gulf of Sant'Eufemia, with kitesurf beaches and brackish lagoons on the Tyrrhenian below.
Mendicino
Province: Cosenza · 475 m
A silk-mill village at the foot of Monte Cocuzzo, ten kilometers from Cosenza, where water still drives the old spinning wheels.
Serrastretta
Province: Catanzaro · 840 m
The chair town of the Reventino massif, founded in 1383 in a narrow gorge between two mountain ranges, still weaving straw seats by hand.
From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns
Trevi
Province: Perugia
A walled town at 412 meters above the Spoleto valley, ringed by 200,000 olive trees that make it the Umbrian capital of olive oil.
Monzambano
Province: Mantova
A Mincio commune at 88 meters in the moraine hills west of Mantova, whose frazione Castellaro Lagusello sits on a heart-shaped lake inside fortified walls.
Varallo
Province: Vercelli
The capital of Valsesia at 450 meters, crowned by a forty-five-chapel devotional complex on the rock above town.
Roccamandolfi
Province: Isernia
At 850 meters at the foot of Monte Miletto, a Matese village of brigand legends, Lombard ruins, and a Tibetan bridge over the Callora canyon.
Lampedusa e Linosa
Province: Agrigento
Italy's southernmost comune, three islands on the African continental shelf, closer to Tunisia than to Sicily.