Designation
Città del Castagno
12 towns across 9 regions
Abruzzo2
Morino
Province: L'Aquila · 440 m
A village at 440 meters on the Lazio border, beneath the central Apennines' second-highest waterfall at over 80 meters.
Sante Marie
Province: L'Aquila · 950 m
A 950-meter Marsica village and the trailhead of the Cammino dei Briganti, the seven-day brigand trail through the Cartore band's territory.
Piedmont2
Chiusa di Pesio
Province: Cuneo · 575 m
The valley mouth town at 575 meters where the Pesio leaves the mountains, founded around a Carthusian monastery donated in 1173.
Ormea
Province: Cuneo · 736 m
A heart-shaped Ligurian-Alps borgo at 736 meters in the upper Tanaro valley, the southernmost town in Piemonte before the Imperia ridge.
Sicily2
Mezzojuso
Province: Palermo · 534 m
An Arbëreshë village of two mother churches, one Latin, one Byzantine, whose Arabic name means the houses of Joseph.
Sant'Alfio
Province: Catania · 537 m
An Etna village at 537 meters where the world's largest and oldest chestnut tree has been measured at over 57 meters in girth.
Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol1
From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Giano dell'Umbria
Province: Perugia
A hill commune between Foligno, Spoleto and Todi, anchored by a Romanesque abbey built over the tomb of a fourth-century martyr.
Assisi
Province: Perugia
A pink limestone town at 424 meters on the western flank of a mountain above the plain, the birthplace of Francis and a UNESCO site since 2000.
Servigliano
Province: Fermo
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.
Labro
Province: Rieti
A 355-person stone borgo at 628 meters, restored since the 1960s by a Belgian architect and his descendants.
San Nicola Arcella
Province: Cosenza
A cliff village above the Tyrrhenian Riviera dei Cedri, where a sea arch fronts a cove only reachable on foot or by boat.