Designation
Città delle Grotte
10 towns across 6 regions
Browse by region
Abruzzo4
Cappadocia
Province: L'Aquila · 1,102 m
A 575-resident Marsican borgo at 1,102m in Abruzzo's western mountains, known for a cave system many mistake for the wrong country entirely.
Carsoli
Province: L'Aquila · 616 m
A 616-meter mountain town in the Marsica, built next to the ruins of a 4th-century BC Roman fortress town.
Lama dei Peligni
Province: Chieti · 669 m
A 669-meter Majella village known for chamois, the Cavallone cave, and a prehistoric burial dug from Fonterossi dated 7000 to 5000 BC.
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.
Campania2
Auletta
Province: Salerno · 280 m
A Tanagro hill town above the Cilento-Vallo di Diano park, fortified by 1000 AD, scene of an 1861 anti-Piedmont massacre and an 1857 earthquake.
Morigerati
Province: Salerno · 340 m
A 608-person Cilento village above the Bussento gorge, the river surfacing from underground caves directly beneath the cliffs.
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.