Hill villages
Two separate marks single out Romagna's best-kept villages: the Bandiera Arancione, the orange flag from the Touring Club Italiano for inland towns with a solid tourism offer, and the title from the association I Borghi più belli d'Italia, reserved for historic centres of particular merit. Some villages hold both, others only one. Neither follows provincial borders, so the list mixes Rimini, Forlì-Cesena and Ravenna.
Villages with the Orange Flag
Eight Romagna towns hold the Orange Flag.
Bagno di Romagna sits in the green of the Foreste Casentinesi and has had thermal waters known since Roman times. Brisighella grows beneath three gypsum pinnacles, with its Manfredi fortress and the Via degli Asini. Castrocaro Terme e Terra del Sole joins the medieval fortress to the fortified town built for Cosimo I de' Medici.
Then come Longiano; Montefiore Conca, with its 14th-century Malatesta fortress; Pennabilli, the home of Tonino Guerra and his Luoghi dell'Anima; San Leo, with the fortress where Cagliostro died; and Verucchio, the cradle of the Malatesta family.
The most beautiful villages of Italy
Six Romagna towns belong to the I Borghi più belli d'Italia association, the most beautiful villages of Italy: Brisighella, Montefiore Conca, Montegridolfo (its walls almost intact), San Giovanni in Marignano (the "Malatesta granary", with its underground grain pits), San Leo and Verucchio.
Other villages in Rimini's hinterland
Even without either mark, some towns are worth a stop for the same character. Santarcangelo di Romagna has an underground town of around 150 caves cut into sandstone. Mondaino gathers around the semicircular square locals call piazza Padella. In Saludecio the historic centre holds around fifty murals.
How to visit them
The villages of the Valmarecchia and Valconca lie in the hinterland of the province of Rimini and suit a single multi-day itinerary. Those around Forlì and Ravenna (Brisighella, Bagno di Romagna, Castrocaro Terme e Terra del Sole) work better as a separate trip from the coast: half an hour or a little more from the main towns.