Borghi più belli d'Italia
Borghi più belli d'Italia in Sicily
23 towns
Sicily carries 23 of the Borghi più belli d'Italia towns we cover. They cluster in the Messina, Enna, and Palermo provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Sambuca di Sicilia, Castiglione di Sicilia, and Cefalù. 20 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
Sambuca di Sicilia
Province: Agrigento · 350 m
An Arab-founded hill town in the Belice valley, still called Zabut in living memory before 1923.
Castiglione di Sicilia
Province: Catania · 621 m
A hill town on the north flank of Etna at 621 meters, base camp for the Alcantara valley and the volcano's most serious red wines.
Cefalù
Province: Palermo · 16 m
A Norman cathedral at the foot of a 270-meter rock on the Tyrrhenian coast, founded in 1131.
Geraci Siculo
Province: Palermo · 1,077 m
A Madonie ridge village at 1,077 meters, capital of the Ventimiglia marquisate from 1258 and the first marquisate granted in Sicily.
Montalbano Elicona
Province: Messina · 907 m
A Nebrodi castle town at 907 meters, Frederick III of Aragon's summer residence and gateway to the Argimusco megalithic plateau.
Palazzolo Acreide
Province: Siracusa · 670 m
An 8,000-resident hilltop town on the Iblei plateau at 670m, rebuilt entirely in late Baroque after the 1693 earthquake and founded over the Greek Akrai colony in 664 BC, with a Greek theatre and a cluster of rock carvings unlike anything else nearby.
Petralia Soprana
Province: Palermo · 1,147 m
The highest village in the Madonie at 1,147 meters, RAI Borgo dei Borghi 2018 winner, sitting above 80 kilometers of salt tunnels.
Troina
Province: Enna · 1,121 m
At 1,121 meters on the Nebrodi ridge, the first capital and first bishopric the Normans set up in Sicily after taking it from the Arabs.
Ferla
Province: Siracusa · 500 m
A baroque village at 500 meters on the Monte Lauro slopes, the western gateway to the UNESCO necropolis of Pantalica eleven kilometers downhill.
Gangi
Province: Palermo · 1,011 m
A Madonie hill town stacked in concentric rings at 1,011 meters, RAI's Borgo dei Borghi 2014 and the launching pad for the one-euro-house programme.
Buccheri
Province: Siracusa · 820 m
The highest village in the province of Syracuse, world capital of Tonda Iblea olive oil at the 2015 Sol d'Oro.
Calascibetta
Province: Enna · 691 m
A promontory town at 691 meters facing Enna across a ravine, founded in the ninth century as a Muslim camp to besiege Byzantine Henna.
San Marco d'Alunzio
Province: Messina · 540 m
A hilltop borgo at 540 meters in pink Aluntina marble, founded by the Greeks and later Robert Guiscard's first Sicilian base.
Savoca
Province: Messina · 300 m
A hilltop borgo at 300 meters above the Ionian, its ridge lined with stepped lanes and balconied stone houses.
Agira
Province: Enna · 650 m
Birthplace of the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus and burial site of 490 Canadian soldiers of the 1943 campaign.
Castelmola
Province: Messina · 529 m
A rock village at 529 meters directly above Taormina, the upper acropolis of ancient Tauromenium with a Norman castle and a 1947 almond-wine bar.
Castroreale
Province: Messina · 394 m
A ridge town at 394 meters above the Milazzo plain, holding the royal name given to it in the fourteenth century and a second-place finish in the 2018 Borgo dei Borghi.
Erice
Province: Trapani · 751 m
An Elymian mountaintop city at 751 meters above Trapani, with a Norman castle on the site of the temple of Venus Erycina and a Cold War physics centre.
Forza d'Agrò
Province: Messina · 420 m
A ridge village of 835 people at 420 meters above the Ionian, its Norman fortress silhouette gave the place its name centuries before a film crew arrived.
Novara di Sicilia
Province: Messina · 650 m
A stone village at 650 meters where the Peloritani meet the Nebrodi, with a UNESCO-listed cheese race tumbling down the main street at Carnival.
Salemi
Province: Trapani · 446 m
The Trapani hill town where Garibaldi raised the tricolor on 14 May 1860 and proclaimed Salemi the capital of Italy for a day.
Sperlinga
Province: Enna · 750 m
A sandstone borgo at 750 meters in the Nebrodi foothills where a Norman castle and dwellings are carved into the rock as one continuous mass.
Sutera
Province: Caltanissetta · 600 m
A medieval village clinging to the base of a 800-meter monolith in the Nisseno interior, with an Arab quarter and a sanctuary on the summit.
From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Campi Salentina
Province: Lecce
A Salento plain town fifteen kilometers north of Lecce, rebuilt after the Saracen raids of 926 and later raised to a marquisate.
Loreto Aprutino
Province: Pescara
A hilltop town at 290 meters in the Aprutino olive country, with a fourteenth-century Judgment fresco and a Castelli majolica collection.
Ascea
Province: Salerno
Two villages, a hilltown at 230 meters and a Cilento marina, with Parmenides and Zeno's Eleatic school in the ruins of Greek Velia below.
Vico del Gargano
Province: Foggia
A Gargano hill town at 445 meters where a Norman castle, a kiss alley, and DOP citrus terraces step down toward the Adriatic.
Mantova
Province: Mantova
A Gonzaga capital at 19 meters, encircled on three sides by lakes the Mincio formed in the twelfth century, UNESCO-listed together with Sabbioneta since 2008.