Borghi più belli d'Italia
Borghi più belli d'Italia in Emilia-Romagna
18 towns
Emilia-Romagna carries 18 of the Borghi più belli d'Italia towns we cover. They are spread over 8 provinces; the most are in Rimini (5), Piacenza (3), and Forlì-Cesena (2).
The three most recognized in our catalogue are Bobbio, Brisighella, and Castell'Arquato. 15 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
The towns
Bobbio
Province: Piacenza · 272 m
A 272-meter Trebbia-valley town built around an abbey founded in 614, named Borgo dei Borghi by RAI in 2019.
Brisighella
Province: Ravenna · 115 m
A Lamone-valley borgo at 115 meters under three selenite hills crowned by a fortress, a clock tower, and a sanctuary.
Castell'Arquato
Province: Piacenza · 224 m
A 224-meter hilltop borgo in the Val d'Arda, kept intact since the tenth century and crowned by Luchino Visconti's 1342 fortress.
Bagno di Romagna
Province: Forlì-Cesena · 491 m
A 491-meter thermal town at the head of the Savio valley, drawing on springs that have run at 47 degrees since Roman times.
Castelvetro di Modena
Province: Modena · 152 m
A 152-meter hill borgo south of Modena whose checkerboard piazza sits above the slopes that grow Lambrusco Grasparossa.
Fiumalbo
Province: Modena · 935 m
A 935-meter stone village in the Modenese Apennines on the Tuscan border, at the confluence of two rivers under Monte Cimone.
Vernasca
Province: Piacenza · 457 m
A Val d'Arda commune in the Piacenza Apennines, holding the walled village of Vigoleno and one of the most compact castled borghi in Emilia.
Montechiarugolo
Province: Parma · 130 m
A Parmigiano-country borgo on the Enza river, built around a fourteenth-century castle that has stayed in the Marchi family since 1864.
Bertinoro
Province: Forlì-Cesena · 254 m
A 254-meter Romagna-hill borgo above the Via Emilia, with a twelve-ring hospitality column from 1300 and the slopes that grow Albana DOCG.
Dozza
Province: Bologna · 190 m
A 190-meter painted borgo above the Sellustra valley, where contemporary artists have repainted the house walls every two years since 1960.
Montefiore Conca
Province: Rimini · 385 m
A 385-meter Malatesta hilltop above the Conca valley, dominated by a fourteenth-century fortress that was once a summer residence of the lords of Rimini.
Montegridolfo
Province: Rimini · 290 m
A walled borgo of fewer than a thousand residents on the Romagna-Marche border, held alternately by the Malatesta and the Montefeltro through the fifteenth century.
San Leo
Province: Rimini · 583 m
A borgo of 2,844 residents built on a vertical 583m limestone outcrop in the Montefeltro, 35 km from Rimini, with a frontier panorama over Romagna and Marche from every wall.
Verucchio
Province: Rimini · 330 m
A spur over the lower Marecchia valley, cradle of the Villanovan civilization and birthplace of the Malatesta lordship of Romagna.
Bagnara di Romagna
Province: Ravenna · 22 m
A 22-meter plain commune in the Bassa Romagna, the only fully preserved medieval castrum surviving in the Romagna lowlands.
Compiano
Province: Parma · 519 m
A 519-meter walled borgo over the Taro, ruled by the same family for 425 years.
Gualtieri
Province: Reggio nell'Emilia · 22 m
A right-bank Po commune in the Reggiana lowlands, built around a hundred-meter-square arcaded piazza and the Bentivoglio palace that holds the Ligabue collection.
San Giovanni in Marignano
Province: Rimini · 29 m
A walled Conca-valley borgo, granary of the Malatesta state, where the Notte delle Streghe has marked the summer solstice since 1988.
From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns
Trieste
Province: Trieste
The Adriatic port the Habsburgs built as their window on the sea, an Italian regional capital still arguing in four languages on the Slovenian border.
Foligno
Province: Perugia
A valley town at 235 meters on the Topino, where Dante's Divine Comedy was first printed in 1472.
Gorizia
Province: Gorizia
Border city below the Julian Alps, split from its neighbor by a 1947 wall and rejoined only after decades of division.
Santa Margherita Ligure
Province: Genova
The Tigullio town that kept its fishing port while the world drove past on the way to Portofino two kilometers further.
Pozzuoli
Province: Napoli
A Roman port on a volcanic caldera, the Greek Dicearchia and the Roman Puteoli, where a market's columns first proved that the ground itself rises and falls.