8 Small Towns in Italy Worth Venturing Off The Beaten Path For

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Most first trips to Italy follow the same line: Rome, Florence and Venice. Those cities earn their place, but some of our favourite days in Italy have been spent in small towns: places you can walk end to end in an afternoon, where dinner is in a family trattoria and the evening passeggiata is the main event. Here are eight we keep going back to, from the trulli of Puglia to a mountain village in Basilicata.

1. Alberobello, Puglia

Plan your visit: Our Alberobello and the trulli guide

Alberobello is the town of the trulli: whitewashed stone houses with grey cone-shaped roofs, built without mortar. More than a thousand of them fill two districts, Rione Monti and Rione Aia Piccola, and together they are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Walk up through Rione Monti for the classic view of roof after roof, many painted with white symbols whose meaning is still argued about. Then look for the Church of Sant’Antonio, built in 1927 in the trullo style with a cone-roofed bell tower, and the Trullo Sovrano, the only two-storey trullo in town. Rione Aia Piccola, across the main road, is quieter and still mostly lived in.

2. San Gimignano, Tuscany

Plan your visit: Our San Gimignano guide

San Gimignano stands on a hilltop between Florence and Siena, and you can see its towers from far across the valley. In the Middle Ages the town’s rich families built dozens of them as a show of wealth and power; 14 still stand, and the historic centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Inside the walls, the Collegiate Church is covered in fourteenth-century frescoes, and you can climb the Torre Grossa, the tallest tower, for the view over the Tuscan hills. The local white wine, Vernaccia di San Gimignano, was the first Italian wine to receive DOC status, in 1966, and many of the vineyards around town offer tastings.

Related: Italy’s Most Romantic Gardens

3. Matera, Basilicata

Plan your visit: Our Matera travel guide

Matera is famous for its Sassi, two old districts (Sasso Caveoso and Sasso Barisano) of homes, churches and lanes carved into the limestone of a ravine. People lived in the caves until the 1950s, when the government moved them out; today the Sassi and their rock churches are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Film-makers love it: Mel Gibson shot The Passion of the Christ here, and the James Bond film No Time to Die opens with a chase through its streets. Walk the Sassi early in the day, visit one of the rock churches such as Santa Maria de Idris, then cross to the viewpoints on the far side of the ravine for the view back over the town.

4. Manarola, Liguria

Plan your visit: Cinque Terre National Park (official site: paths, trains and tickets)

Manarola is one of the five Cinque Terre villages: a cluster of painted houses on a rock above a tiny harbour. The view back to the village from the path around the headland at sunset is one of the most photographed in Italy.

The terraced vineyards above the village produce Sciacchetrà, the Cinque Terre’s sweet dessert wine. Below, there is no beach, but in summer people swim off the rocks by the harbour. The Via dell’Amore, the short cliffside walk to Riomaggiore, reopened in 2024 after years of repair work; check the Cinque Terre National Park site for opening times and tickets before you go.

Related: The Ultimate Italy Travel Guide

5. Orvieto, Umbria

Plan your visit: Orvieto on Umbria Tourism (official)

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Orvieto sits on top of a cliff of volcanic tuff, and you reach it from the railway station by funicular. Its Gothic cathedral has one of the great facades in Italy, covered in mosaics and carved reliefs, and inside, the Chapel of San Brizio holds Luca Signorelli’s frescoes of the Last Judgment.

Under the town lies a second Orvieto: hundreds of caves, wells and passages dug into the tuff over centuries, for storage, olive presses and pigeon breeding. Guided tours of Orvieto Underground start near the cathedral. Afterwards, try a glass of Orvieto, the local white wine, with a view across the Umbrian countryside.

6. Castelmezzano, Basilicata

Plan your visit: Castelmezzano on Italia.it (official)

Castelmezzano is a village of stone houses tucked under the jagged sandstone peaks of the Dolomiti Lucane, in the mountains of Basilicata. It is one of the most dramatic settings of any village in southern Italy, and still very quiet.

It is also the starting point of the Volo dell’Angelo (the Angel’s Flight), a steel-cable zip line that carries you, harnessed and face down, across the valley to the neighbouring village of Pietrapertosa and back. If you prefer your feet on the ground, a walking path called the Percorso delle Sette Pietre links the two villages, and there is a via ferrata for climbers. The Angel’s Flight runs in season only, so check dates before you go.

7. Civita di Bagnoregio, Lazio

Plan your visit: Our Civita di Bagnoregio guide

Civita di Bagnoregio is called “the dying town” because the soft clay hill it stands on is slowly eroding away, and only a handful of people still live there. It was founded by the Etruscans more than 2,500 years ago, and it sits on its pinnacle above a valley of grey badlands.

You cannot drive in. Visitors park in Bagnoregio and cross a long, steep pedestrian bridge, paying a small entry fee at the start. Inside, it takes only half an hour to walk every lane, but most people stay much longer: for the views over the valley, a glass of wine in a cave bar, and the quiet once the day-trippers leave.

8. Polignano a Mare, Puglia

Plan your visit: Our Polignano a Mare guide

Polignano a Mare is a white town built on limestone cliffs above the Adriatic, south of Bari. Balconies and terraces hang over the sea, and the cliffs below are full of sea caves.

Its best-known spot is Lama Monachile (also called Cala Porto), a small pebble cove between two cliffs, reached from the old town and crossed by a Bourbon-era bridge. Polignano is also the home town of Domenico Modugno, who sang “Volare”: his statue stands with open arms on the seafront. The town is on the railway line from Bari, so it is an easy day out by train.

Each of these eight towns rewards a slow day and, if you can, a night. Pick one or two that fit your route rather than trying to tick them all off in one trip.

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