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Location of "The most beautiful villages in Italy" in Sicily

From left to right (Click on map markers for details): Cefalù, Geraci Siculo, San Marco d'Alunzio, Brolo, Montelbano Elicona, Novara di Sicilia, Savoca, Castelmola

As of the moment of publishing this page, Sicily has been the home of eight out of 199 "The most beautiful villages in Italy" (I borghi più belli d'Italia) - small Italian towns of particular interest in art and history that have been included in the namesake Italian club. The club was born in March 2001 on the initiative of the Tourism Advisory of the National Association of Italian Municipalities (ANCI), with the intent to help protect, preserve and revitalize small towns which, being off the main tourist routes, risk to be forgotten and abandoned despite their great value.

All these places are beautiful. If you are interested in learning more and possibly visiting them, this article (split in several pages) may help you. Its purpose is to summarize in one place all basic information regarding "The most beautiful villages in Italy" in Sicily. The map above shows locations of all such towns. Two out of eight "the most beautiful villages in Italy" are located in the province of Palermo: Cefalù and Geraci Siculo. The rest: San Marco d'Alunzio, Brolo, Montelbano Elicona, Novara di Sicilia, Savoca and Castelmola are in the province of Messina. Use links to pages dedicated to individual "borghi" with some pictures and descriptions to get a general idea about them. Coming soon is our travel idea regarding "The most beautiful villages in Italy" in Sicily.

If you have enough time (10 days or more), you can easily visit all eight of them - one of the ways to do this is to start your itinerary in Palermo or Catania and visit them one-by-one. I am mentioning Palermo and Catania because in Sicily they seem to be the best connected cities (by see and air) to the rest of the world. Otherwise, Messina is another good option. Instead of hopping from town to town, an alternative approach is to select several towns as your temporary bases and visit villages as your daily excursions. If you plan to visit all of them, here are the distances between different potential stops in your itinerary:

- Palermo - Cefalù: 42 miles / 68 km
- Cefalù - Geraci Siculo: 29 miles / 46 km
- Geraci Siculo - San Marco d'Alunzio: 68 miles / 110 km
- San Marco d'Alunzio - Brolo: 19 miles / 30 km
- Brolo - Montelbano Elicona: 33 miles / 53 km
- Montelbano Elicona - Novara di Sicilia: 21 miles / 34 km
- Novara di Sicilia - Savoca: 29 miles / 47 km
- Savoca - Castelmola: 19 miles / 31 km
- Castelmola - Palermo (via Catania): 165 miles / 265 km