Charming old-world towns in Italy off the beaten path.

Less-touristed old-world towns in Italy, for travelers seeking fewer crowds but all the beauty.

Ragusa's baroque skyline — rebuilt from rubble after the 1693 earthquake that levelled much of southeastern Sicily — sets the tone for what this list of 384 Italian towns keeps delivering: places shaped by specific histories, specific hands. From Saluzzo, which governed its own marquisate for four centuries at the foot of the Monviso, to Castelmezzano wedged into the Dolomiti Lucane rock formations, to Vigevano's Renaissance Piazza Ducale and its unlikely legacy as Italy's shoemaking capital, the picks span Cuneo, Lecce, Bari, and well beyond.