Italy

Anghiari in Tuscany's Valtiberina sits above the plain where the 1440 Battle of Anghiari was fought, the subject of Leonardo da Vinci's lost fresco.

Arquà Petrarca in the Euganean Hills, Veneto, was the final home of Petrarch (1370–1374), whose house and marble tomb still stand in this medieval village.

Asolo occupies a hilltop above the Prosecco-growing hills of the Veneto, a position that earned it the nickname ‘the city of a hundred horizons.’ Several Palladian villas lie within a short drive.

Castelrotto sits at the foot of the Alpe di Siusi, the largest high alpine meadow in Europe.

Castiglione del Lago occupies a promontory surrounded on three sides by Lake Trasimeno.

Civita di Bagnoregio stands alone on an eroding tufa pillar, reachable only by a footbridge — no vehicle has ever been able to reach it.

Civitella del Tronto in Abruzzo is crowned by Italy's largest fortress, which surrendered last at Italian unification on 20 March 1861.

Follina in the Treviso Prealps, Veneto, is built around a 12th-century Cistercian abbey and lies along the UNESCO Prosecco Superiore wine hills.

Glorenza (Glurns) in South Tyrol is the Alps' only fully intact walled medieval town, rebuilt after 1499 with walls and towers still standing today.

Montagnana is encircled by one of the best-preserved sets of medieval city walls in Europe, complete with two fortified gates.

Montefalco in Umbria, the 'Balcony of Umbria' at 472 m, is the centre of Sagrantino DOCG wine country and houses Benozzo Gozzoli's Renaissance frescoes.

Neive sits among the vineyards of the Langhe, in the heart of Barbaresco wine country — a UNESCO-listed vineyard landscape.

Orta San Giulio occupies a promontory on Lake Orta, facing the small Isola San Giulio just offshore.

Ostana in the Cuneo Alps, an Occitan village at 1,250 m that reversed near-total depopulation through strict traditional architecture restoration.

Pitigliano rises directly from a tufa cliff in Tuscany's Maremma, its buildings seemingly continuous with the rock beneath them.

Sovana, a frazione of Sorano with barely more than a hundred residents, sits above an Etruscan necropolis carved into the surrounding tufa cliffs.

Spello climbs a ridge of Monte Subasio in Umbria, its Roman and medieval layers visible in the same walls.

Vigo di Fassa sits at 1 382 m in the Ladin-speaking Val di Fassa. Gateway to the Catinaccio, home of the Museo Ladin de Fascia.

Alberobello in Apulia is built of trulli, dry-stone huts with conical roofs, UNESCO-listed since 1996. Its Rione Monti district remains fully inhabited.

Pienza in Tuscany's Val d'Orcia was rebuilt as an ideal Renaissance town for Pope Pius II in 1459, designed by Bernardo Rossellino. UNESCO-listed since 1996.

Vernazza is the only natural port of the Cinque Terre, a UNESCO-listed coastal landscape in Liguria since 1997, built around a fortified fishing harbor.

Manarola is the smallest inhabited Cinque Terre village, part of Italy's UNESCO-listed coastal landscape, known for terraced vineyards and cliffside houses.