Borghi più belli d'Italia
Borghi più belli d'Italia in Marche
31 towns
Marche carries 31 of the Borghi più belli d'Italia towns we cover. They cluster in the Macerata, Pesaro e Urbino, and Ancona provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Cingoli, Gradara, and Grottammare. 28 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
Cingoli
Province: Macerata · 631 m
The Balcone delle Marche at 631 meters, a hilltop borgo where on clear days the view runs from the Sibillini to the Croatian coast.
Gradara
Province: Pesaro e Urbino · 142 m
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.
Grottammare
Province: Ascoli Piceno · 4 m
A double town on the Riviera delle Palme, with a palm-lined seafront and a medieval upper borgo where Pope Sixtus V was born.
Mondolfo
Province: Pesaro e Urbino · 144 m
A walled hill borgo at 144 meters above the Adriatic, with the frazione of Marotta and its beach below.
Montelupone
Province: Macerata · 272 m
A walled hill borgo at 272 meters above the lower Potenza valley, with a fourteenth-century civic loggia and a 1889 horseshoe theatre.
Ripatransone
Province: Ascoli Piceno · 494 m
The Belvedere del Piceno at 494 meters, ridgetop borgo with views to the Adriatic and the narrowest alley in Italy at 43 centimeters.
Corinaldo
Province: Ancona · 203 m
A walled hill borgo at 203 meters, ringed by 912 meters of intact medieval walls, and the birthplace of Saint Maria Goretti.
Mercatello sul Metauro
Province: Pesaro e Urbino · 429 m
A walled borgo at 429 meters in the upper Metauro, autonomous since 1235, with a pieve exempt from any bishop.
Montecassiano
Province: Macerata · 188 m
A walled hill borgo north of Macerata, built around a terracotta altarpiece too large to move.
San Ginesio
Province: Macerata · 680 m
The Balcony of the Sibillini at 680 meters, where a 1295 pilgrim hospital and the only flowery gothic collegiate church in the Marche stand within the same walls.
Sarnano
Province: Macerata · 539 m
A 539-meter medieval borgo of baked brick at the foot of the Sibillini, with thermal springs that ran for 84 years until the 2016 earthquake.
Visso
Province: Macerata · 607 m
The northern Sibillini gate at 607 meters where the Nera meets the Ussita, holding one of two surviving manuscripts of Leopardi's L'Infinito.
Arcevia
Province: Ancona · 535 m
A hilltop borgo at 535 meters above the Misa and Nevola valleys, defended in the Middle Ages by a ring of nine satellite castles.
Esanatoglia
Province: Macerata · 358 m
A medieval village of seven bell towers at 358 meters on the Marche-Umbria border, sitting at the source of the Esino river.
Fermo
Province: Fermo · 319 m
The provincial capital on the Sabulo hill at 319 meters, with 2,200 square meters of Augustan Roman cisterns running under the centro storico.
Mondavio
Province: Pesaro e Urbino · 280 m
A hill borgo at 280 meters whose fortress never took a cannon shot.
Monte Grimano Terme
Province: Pesaro e Urbino · 536 m
A small Montefeltro borgo at 536 meters on the Marche-Romagna border, built around alkaline sulphur springs.
Morro d'Alba
Province: Ancona · 199 m
A walled Castello di Jesi at 199 meters above the Esino valley, ringed by a covered walkway found nowhere else in Italy.
Offagna
Province: Ancona · 309 m
A hilltop borgo at 309 meters between Ancona and Osimo, dominated by a Rocca built in just two years by the Anconitans in 1454-56.
Offida
Province: Ascoli Piceno · 293 m
A hill borgo at 293 meters in the Piceno wine country, with a Romanesque-Gothic cliff church and women still working bobbin lace.
Pergola
Province: Pesaro e Urbino · 265 m
A hill town at 265 meters in the upper Cesano valley, holding the only surviving group of Roman gilded bronze statues from antiquity.
Sassoferrato
Province: Ancona · 386 m
A two-level Apennine town above Roman Sentinum, where the consuls Decius Mus and Fabius Maximus defeated four allied tribes in 295 BC.
Treia
Province: Macerata · 342 m
A Macerata hill town at 342 meters, the Roman municipium Trea, renamed by Pope Pius VI in 1790 after centuries as Montecchio.
Vallefoglia
Province: Pesaro e Urbino · 295 m
A 2014 merger commune at 295 meters in the Foglia valley, born from Colbordolo, birthplace of Raffaello's father, and Sant'Angelo in Lizzola.
Macerata Feltria
Province: Pesaro e Urbino · 321 m
A 1,889-resident Borghi più belli borgo at 321m in the Marche side of the Montefeltro, built over the Roman municipium of Pitinum Pisaurense, with a small thermal spa still drawing on the same sulphurous spring water the Romans used.
Montecosaro
Province: Macerata · 267 m
A walled hilltop borgo at 267 meters above the Chienti valley, with a Romanesque basilica rebuilt in 1125 on the river plain below.
Montefiore dell'Aso
Province: Ascoli Piceno · 412 m
A hilltop borgo at 412 meters between the Aso and Menocchia valleys, holding six surviving panels of Carlo Crivelli's 1472 polyptych.
Monteprandone
Province: Ascoli Piceno · 266 m
A hilltop borgo at 266 meters above the lower Tronto valley, its walled center climbing toward a summit church with a view to the Adriatic.
Moresco
Province: Fermo · 405 m
A 516-person hill borgo at 405 meters above the Aso valley, with a 25-meter seven-sided tower unique in Europe.
Petritoli
Province: Fermo · 358 m
A hilltop borgo at 358 meters above the Aso valley, formed around the year 1000 from the merger of three castles.
Servigliano
Province: Fermo · 215 m
An eighteenth-century ideal city at 215 meters in the Tenna valley, rebuilt by papal commission on a 137-by-144-meter quadrangle after the old hill village collapsed.
From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Castiglion Fiorentino
Province: Arezzo
A walled hill town at 342 meters between Arezzo and Cortona, where Etruscan walls support the medieval Cassero.
Savoca
Province: Messina
A hilltop borgo at 300 meters above the Ionian, its ridge lined with stepped lanes and balconied stone houses.
Magione
Province: Perugia
A hill town east of Trasimeno built around a medieval Order's fortified base.
Sant'Agata de' Goti
Province: Benevento
A medieval town built on a tuff cliff between two gorges, the houses standing flush with the edge over the Isclero river below.
Castelvecchio di Rocca Barbena
Province: Savona
A stone village of 130 residents at 420 meters, built into the southern foot of a 1,142-meter limestone outcrop.