Borghi più belli d'Italia
Borghi più belli d'Italia in Liguria
28 towns
Liguria carries 28 of the Borghi più belli d'Italia towns we cover. Most cluster in the Imperia, Savona, and La Spezia provinces.
The three most recognized in our catalogue are Triora, Brugnato, and Diano. 25 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
The towns
Triora
Province: Imperia · 776 m
The witches' village at 776 meters in the upper Valle Argentina, where the Inquisition put around 200 women on trial between 1587 and 1589.
- Written about. No. 57.
Brugnato
Province: La Spezia · 115 m
The medieval ecclesiastical capital of an inland Ligurian valley, seat of a diocese from 1133 to 1820, with a co-cathedral built over a Columban monastery.
Diano
Province: Imperia · 70 m
A twin destination on the Riviera dei Fiori: a medieval hilltop borgo above and a beach resort below, sharing one bay and one olive valley.
Apricale
Province: Imperia · 273 m
A medieval hill village in the Nervia Valley, named for the Latin apricus, sunny, with a tenth-century castle shaped like a lizard on the rock.
Badalucco
Province: Imperia · 179 m
A medieval village wrapped in a bend of the Argentina torrent, with murals on its caruggi and a Slow Food bean on its terraces.
Borgio Verezzi
Province: Savona · 30 m
Two villages joined under one comune in 1933: Borgio on the coast below, Verezzi on the pink-stone hill above.
Campo Ligure
Province: Genova · 342 m
A Spinola borgo at 342 meters in the Stura valley north of Genova, the last working center for gold and silver filigree in Italy.
Celle Ligure
Province: Savona · 5 m
A Riviera di Ponente beach town with kilns firing since the 1600s.
Finale Ligure
Province: Savona · 12 m
Three boroughs on the Gulf of Genoa, a walled inland seat set back from two coastal quarters below a karst limestone circuit.
- Written about. No. 17.
Lerici
Province: La Spezia · 10 m
A fishing harbor under a Pisan-Genoese castle, with the frazione of Tellaro hanging over the rocks at the commune's southern edge.
Millesimo
Province: Savona · 429 m
A fortified borgo at 429 meters, where Napoleon broke the Austro-Sardinian army in April 1796.
Perinaldo
Province: Imperia · 572 m
A ridge village at 572 meters, birthplace of Giovanni Domenico Cassini and home to a working astronomical observatory in his name.
- Written about. No. 56.
Vernazza
Province: La Spezia · 3 m
The middle village of the coast, the only one with a natural harbor, buried under four meters of mud in October 2011.
- Written about. No. 18.
Ameglia
Province: La Spezia · 89 m
A hilltop borgo at 89 meters above the mouth of the Magra, the Lunigiana edge of Liguria where the river meets the Gulf of Poets.
Castelvecchio di Rocca Barbena
Province: Savona · 420 m
A stone village of 126 residents at 420 meters, built into the southern foot of a 1,142-meter limestone outcrop.
Ceriana
Province: Imperia · 369 m
A medieval village at 369 meters above the Valle Armea, inland from Sanremo, built on the Roman castrum that gave it its name.
Cervo
Province: Imperia · 66 m
A hilltop village on the Riviera di Ponente built by coral fishermen, named for the Roman mansio on the Via Julia Augusta.
Framura
Province: La Spezia · 76 m
Five hamlets between sea level and 300 meters on the Riviera di Levante, with Byzantine watchtowers built against Saracen incursions.
Laigueglia
Province: Savona · 6 m
A former coral-fishing village on the Riviera di Ponente, with a curved Baroque parish church and a fishermen's grid of caruggi behind the beach.
Moneglia
Province: Genova · 4 m
A bay on the Riviera di Levante, closed by two wooded headlands.
Noli
Province: Savona · 4 m
The fifth Italian maritime republic from 1192 to 1797, a walled coastal town with the Romanesque basilica of San Paragorio outside its gates.
Pieve di Teco
Province: Imperia · 240 m
A planned market town founded in 1233 in the middle Arroscia valley, with porticoed Corso Ponzoni and one of the smallest theaters in Italy.
Seborga
Province: Imperia · 517 m
A hilltop village at 517 meters above Bordighera that calls itself a principality, 284 residents, its own coins and stamps since 1963.
Taggia
Province: Imperia · 40 m
The Argentina valley's medieval seat above the Riviera dei Fiori, the town that gave its name to the Taggiasca olive grown across western Liguria.
Varese Ligure
Province: La Spezia · 358 m
The Val di Vara's medieval seat at 358 meters, the first European municipality with ISO 14001 certification, anchor of Italy's largest organic district.
Cipressa
Province: Imperia · 232 m
A ridgeline village at 232 meters above the Riviera dei Fiori, the climb that decides the final selection of a famous cycling race and a sixteenth-century Saracen-defence tower as its summit.
Deiva Marina
Province: La Spezia · 12 m
A Riviera di Levante seaside commune reachable by sea only after the 1874 railway.
Zuccarello
Province: Savona · 130 m
A 279-person medieval borgo in the Neva valley above Albenga, founded by the Marquises of Clavesana in 1248, birthplace of Ilaria del Carretto.
From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns
Ostana
Province: Cuneo
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.
Borgo Val di Taro
Province: Parma
The Cittaslow capital of the upper Taro valley at 411 meters, where the Fungo di Borgotaro IGP porcini has been protected since 1996.
Fiuggi
Province: Frosinone
The Ernici-mountain thermal town where Boniface VIII and Michelangelo both came to dissolve kidney stones with the oligomineral spring water.
Boville Ernica
Province: Frosinone
A Ciociaria hilltop town with eighteen intact medieval towers, ringed by a walled circuit that has stood since the tenth century.
Acquaviva Picena
Province: Ascoli Piceno
A walled hill borgo at 359 meters, six kilometers from the Adriatic, anchored by a cylindrical fortress keep and the surviving pajarola craft.