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. They cluster in the Imperia, Savona, and La Spezia provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Triora, Brugnato, and Diano. 25 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
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.
- ✷ We've been
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 centre 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 and a ceramic on its parish church façade.
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.
- ✷ We've been
Lerici
Province: La Spezia · 10 m
A fishing harbour 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.
- ✷ We've been
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.
- ✷ We've been
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 130 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 the second-smallest theater in Italy.
Seborga
Province: Imperia · 517 m
A hilltop village at 517 meters above Bordighera that calls itself a principality, 276 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 280-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 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.