Last verified: September 6, 2026. Tourist taxes moved in Trieste, Genoa and Bologna this year, and the rail works on the Milan to Bologna line run through September. I re-check every train time, tax and ticket rule in this guide monthly against the operators and the comune pages.
Four cities took 17.2 percent of every overnight stay in Italy last year. One of them, Venice, is down to 47,652 residents in its historic centre against about 9.3 million overnight stays. The rest of the country has roughly 7,900 other comuni, and twelve of them are cities you can reach by train, sleep in for less, and walk through without a timed ticket. Those twelve are the underrated cities in Italy this guide is about.
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You’ve seen the photo lists. What none of them tells you is how much quieter each city really is, how much cheaper the room is, how far it sits from the station you’re already using, or what the tourist tax and the booking rules are in 2026.
So this guide does the arithmetic. Each of the twelve underrated cities in Italy below is paired with the famous place it swaps for. Each one gets the overnight-stays-per-resident number, the fastest train, the 2026 tax and the one rule worth knowing. A scorecard table and a train table hold it all together, and the last section says which two to combine with one famous city.
If you’re still choosing which region gets your trip, our region-by-region guide to where to go in Italy shows where these cities sit in the country. Our list of 15 things first-timers get wrong explains why the crowd is usually in the wrong place.
Key Takeaways
- Rome, Milan, Venice and Florence absorbed 17.2 percent of every overnight stay in Italy in 2025, three points more than a decade earlier (ISTAT, July 2026).
- The twelve cities below take the overflow at a fraction of the density. Florence runs at about 31 overnight stays per resident and Venice’s historic centre at roughly 195, against about 14 in Bologna, 13 in Verona, 10 in Trieste and under 6 in Turin.
- Every one of the twelve sits on a main rail line, ten are under 90 minutes from Milan, Venice, Florence or Bari, and none needs a car.
- They aren’t free of rules. Padua’s Scrovegni Chapel is pre-booking only, Bologna’s tourist tax reaches €7 a night in 2026, higher than Venice’s overnight rate, and Trieste’s rose 50 percent in January.
- Pick one famous city and one of these, and the trip costs less and queues less.
Table of Contents
How Crowded Are Rome, Florence and Venice Really?
Crowded enough to be measured in residents. In 2025, Rome, Milan, Venice and Florence took 17.2 percent of Italy’s roughly 477 million overnight stays, up three points on 2015, and foreigners made up more than three-quarters of the stays in all four (ISTAT, Dal Grand tour al turismo di massa, July 2026). Florence logged about 31 stays per resident. Venice’s historic centre logged about 195. Bologna, the busiest of the underrated cities in Italy, sits near 14.
The donut is the national picture. The per-resident number is the one you feel on the pavement. Florence counted 11.1 million overnight stays in 2025, up 7.8 percent, plus about 8 million day-trippers a year, and tourist-bus permits rose 45.3 percent in the first ten months (Comune di Firenze, December 2025). Divide 11.1 million by 361,625 residents and you get 31.
Venice is the extreme case. The historic centre had about 170,000 people in it on an average day in 2024, 80,000 of them commuters and students rather than tourists, and 723,497 day visitors paid the access fee in 2025 (Comune di Venezia via ANSA, December 2025). The whole comune took 12.9 million overnight stays in 2025, down 2.7 percent, and the centre’s population fell to 47,652 in January (Regione Veneto; Il Post, 2026).
One caveat before the list, because the honest version of this argument has one. Demoskopika’s 2026 overtourism index puts ten provinces in its red zone: Rimini, Venice, Bolzano, Livorno, Naples, Milan, Trento, Rome, Verona and Trieste (Istituto Demoskopika via Geopop, July 2026). Verona and Trieste are on this list. The index is provincial, so those two entries are Lake Garda and the Adriatic coast. The city centres are where the crowd isn’t.
What does “underrated” mean here, then? Fewer than 15 overnight stays per resident, a station on a main line, no access fee, no daily cap, and at most one sight that sells named tickets.
The famous cities now fail most of that test. Every Uffizi ticket has carried a name since October 13, 2025, and the price is €25 year-round. Colosseum tickets lost their free name changes on May 9, 2026. Venice ran 60 fee dates this year through July 26. Our Florence guide, Rome guide and Venice guide carry those rules in full, and our complete Italy travel guide has the planning basics under all of them.
Here’s the scorecard for the twelve underrated cities in Italy that pass. Every number is explained in the sections that follow.
| City | Instead of | Fastest train | 2025 stays (per resident) | 4-star tax (cap) | The one rule |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bologna | Florence | Florence 37 min | 5.4M (~14) | €7 (5 nights) | Asinelli tower closed to climbers |
| Turin | Milan | Milan 47 min | 4.75M (~5.6) | €4.50 (7 nights) | ATP Finals Nov 15 to 22 fill the rooms |
| Genoa | A Cinque Terre base | Milan 1h30 | ~3.5M (~6) | €4 (8 nights) | B&B and flat tax rose Aug 1 |
| Bergamo | A Milan hotel night | Milan 40 to 55 min | 1.3M+ (~11) | 7% of room, max €5 (5 nights) | Città Alta by funicular, not by car |
| Parma | A Tuscany food day | Bologna ~50 min | 1.71M (~9) | raised Jan 1, ask the hotel | Dairies by pre-booked visit only |
| Verona | A Venice day trip | Venice ~1h10 | 3.3M (~13) | up to €5 (4 nights a month) | Opera nights, not Juliet’s balcony |
| Padua | A Venice night | Venice ~26 min | 2.37M in 2024, wider area | €3.50 (5 nights) | Scrovegni: pre-book, 25 per slot |
| Trieste | A third Venice day | Venice 1h35 | 2M+ (~10) | €3.30 (5 nights) | Tax rose 50% on Jan 1 |
| Lucca | Pisa | Florence ~80 min | 1M+ (~11) | €4.50 (3 nights) | Comics & Games week triples rooms |
| Matera | A fourth Rome day | Bari 1h47 | ~479k (~8) | no published table | Day-trip from Bari, never from Lecce |
| Lecce | Positano | Rome 5h41 direct | 1.1M (~12) | €4.50 (5 nights) | Permanent ZTL; park outside the walls |
| Catania | Taormina | Syracuse ~1h10 | region only | €4 (4 nights) | Check Etna and the airport bulletin |
1. Is Bologna Better Than Florence?
The same 37-minute Frecciarossa that carries day-trippers into Florence carries you out to a city that filled 77.4 percent of its hotel rooms in 2025 without a single sight a first-timer could name (Italian Hotel Monitor via GuidaViaggi, February 2026). Bologna took 5.4 million overnight stays last year, more than half of them foreign, and the United States became its top market for the first time (Bologna Welcome via Travel Quotidiano, April 2026).
What do you do with it? Walk. Forty kilometres of porticoes, UNESCO-listed since 2021, run from the centre up to the San Luca sanctuary on the hill. The Archiginnasio’s wooden anatomical theatre is the room I’d send anyone to first. On my last stretch through Bologna I walked into it on a Tuesday morning with about six other people. The Quadrilatero market streets do lunch: tagliatelle al ragù, tortellini in brodo, mortadella cut thick. To roll the tagliatelle yourself, the city’s hands-on class starts at €115 in my guide to cooking classes in Italy.
The famous towers need a caveat, and it’s a big one. The Asinelli has been closed to climbers since October 23, 2023, while a roughly €19 million operation stabilises the leaning Garisenda beside it with the same cable-and-pylon method that saved Pisa. The official reopening is set for 2028, and the city has said only that it hopes to manage it sooner (Il Resto del Carlino, 2026). For a view, climb the clock tower on Palazzo d’Accursio in Piazza Maggiore instead.
Milan is 1 hour 02 away by Italo from €12.90, and our guide to how Frecciarossa, Italo and regional fares work explains why the Florence hop costs so little.
Now the honest cost line. On the last hotel monitor that priced the second-tier cities, Bologna’s average room was €104.85 a night against €239.68 in Venice and €205.09 in Florence (Trademark Italia via GuidaViaggi, 2023). That set is dated, so read it as a ratio: under half.
The tax runs the other way. Bologna charges by room price in 2026: €4 under €31, €5.80 to €70.99, €6.50 to €120.99 and €7 above €121, capped at five nights (Comune di Bologna, 2026). That’s higher than Venice’s overnight rate. It’s also about €3 a night against a room saving of well over €100, which is why Bologna leads the underrated cities in Italy on every list I’d trust. Our Italy tourist-tax guide keeps the national table.
2. Is Turin Worth Visiting Instead of Milan?
Forty-seven minutes west of Milan by Frecciarossa or Italo, from €8.90, Turin logged about 4.75 million overnight stays in 2025, up 6.7 percent, with foreign arrivals up 13 percent (Osservatorio Turistico Regione Piemonte via Visit Piemonte, 2026). Spread over 855,654 residents, that’s about 5.6 stays per head, roughly a third of Bologna’s density and a fifth of Florence’s. It’s the biggest of the underrated cities in Italy and the least dense.
Is Turin worth visiting, or is it just cheaper? Both. The Egyptian Museum holds the largest collection outside Cairo and now runs on timed online tickets, so book the slot before the train. The Mole’s glass lift rises through the cinema museum. The royal residences ring the city, with the Reggia di Venaria the one to give a half day.
Then there are the cafés. The mirrored rooms along Via Po and Piazza San Carlo haven’t been redecorated since the 1880s. I sat down for a bicerin in one of them on a wet Tuesday and paid less than a Milan coffee costs at a bar with a view.
The tax is €3 to €5 a night by star: €3 at a one- or two-star, €3.50 at a three, €4.50 at a four, €5 at a five, €3.80 at a B&B, capped at seven nights (Città di Torino, December 2025). The average stay is 2.6 nights, so two is normal here and three is a luxury.
One week to avoid if price is the point. The Nitto ATP Finals run at the Inalpi Arena from November 15 to 22, 2026, and the film festival follows in the same month (Turismo Torino, 2026). Rooms double. The Langhe vineyards are the day out from Turin, and our lakes comparison explains why Milan is the shared airport for both. Our honest Italy budget breakdown has Milan’s rate for contrast.
3. Genoa Instead of a Cinque Terre Base
Sleep in Genoa and the Cinque Terre is about an hour and a half down the coast by regional train, though check which trails are actually open before you plan a walking day. You trade a cliff-village room for a working port city of about 3.5 million overnight stays a year, half of them foreign (Visit Genoa, March 2026). Against 566,247 residents, that’s about six stays per head. Foreign stays grew 15 percent in 2025, so Genoa is being found. It hasn’t been found yet.
The city rewards a night more than a day. The Palazzi dei Rolli, the Renaissance palaces UNESCO listed in 2006, open their staircases and frescoed halls along Via Garibaldi. The caruggi, the alleys of the old town, are Europe’s largest medieval centre still lived in. The aquarium on the old port is the one paid sight everyone does. Focaccia comes out of the ovens at eight in the morning and the pesto is the original.
What’s new? The Waterfront di Levante, Renzo Piano’s rebuild of the old fair district, opened its mall on March 27, 2026 with about 70 shops over roughly 27,000 square metres (Genova Smart, 2026). It’s a fact rather than a reason to come. Milan is 1 hour 30 away on the fastest train.
The tax moved this summer. Hotels charge €2 to €5 by star, but from August 1, 2026 a B&B charges €4, up from €3, and a tourist flat €5, up from €4, capped at eight nights (Comune di Genova; ANSA, June 2026). For the trail cards and the one-way rules on the coast itself, our Amalfi Coast vs Cinque Terre comparison does the arithmetic.
4. Bergamo Instead of a Milan Hotel Night
Forty to fifty-five minutes from Milan Centrale, Bergamo’s walled upper town is the hill town that Como’s day-trippers drive past on the motorway. The city took 666,254 arrivals and more than 1.3 million overnight stays in 2025, up over 10 percent on 2024, which works out at about 11 stays per resident (Provincia di Bergamo via Bergamonews, May 2026). Poland is now its largest foreign market.
Why sleep here rather than in Milan? Two reasons. The airport most low-cost flights land at is Bergamo’s, not Milan’s, and the upper town after the last funicular is as quiet as any Tuscan hill town.
Piazza Vecchia, the Colleoni chapel’s marble front and the Accademia Carrara’s paintings fill a day. Casoncelli, the stuffed pasta with butter and sage, fills the evening. The Venetian walls around the Città Alta have been UNESCO-listed since 2017, and when Bergamo shared the Italian Capital of Culture title with Brescia in 2023, overnight stays jumped 41.7 percent in the first nine months (Confcommercio, 2023).
The tax is the simplest in this guide: 7 percent of the room price, capped at €5 a night, for up to five nights, since April 1, 2025 (Visit Bergamo, 2026). Lake Iseo is 45 minutes away and Como about an hour, and our Como, Garda and Maggiore comparison covers both.
5. Parma Instead of a Tuscany Food Day
Parma is where the ham and the cheese come from, about 50 minutes from Bologna by regional train and an hour from Milan, and it held the Italian Capital of Culture title through 2020 and 2021 without turning into a queue. It took 1.71 million overnight stays in 2025, up 7.8 percent, on more than 790,000 arrivals, which is about nine stays per resident (ParmaToday on the Destinazione Emilia figures, 2026). Of all the underrated cities in Italy, it’s the one where the food is the sight.
The dairies are the point. Parmigiano Reggiano and Prosciutto di Parma producers open their vats and drying rooms by pre-booked visit through the two consortia, and the tour ends in the tasting room. Back in town, Correggio’s dome in the Duomo and the pink Battistero next to it are two of the finest rooms in Emilia. The wooden Teatro Farnese inside the Pilotta palace is the other. Verdi’s Busseto is half an hour away.
Parma raised every band of its tourist tax on January 1, 2026, and the steepest rise was at the top. Five-star rooms went up €1.50 from €3.50, four-star by 50 cents, and stays booked through an online portal now carry a 3 percent charge (Gazzetta di Parma). No per-band table has followed, so ask your hotel and expect somewhere between €2 and €5.
Is Parma worth a night over a Tuscan food day? Our Tuscany itinerary beyond Florence shows what that day out costs. Parma does the same thing for less, and by train rather than by car.
6. Verona Instead of a Venice Day Trip
Verona’s city took more than 3.3 million overnight stays in 2025, up 6.4 percent, and still runs at about 13 per resident. Its province took about 20 million, four-fifths of them foreign, and that is Lake Garda’s number, not the city’s (Camera di Commercio di Verona, February 2026). Venice and Milan are both about 1 hour 10 away by fast train, which makes Verona the easiest swap among the underrated cities in Italy.
The Arena is the reason to time a visit. The Roman amphitheatre hosts its opera festival each summer, the 103rd edition in 2026, and the cheapest seats on the stone steps cost less than a Venice gondola ride. Castelvecchio’s museum, Piazza delle Erbe and the loop of the Adige fill the daylight. Juliet’s balcony is the one crowd in town, and it’s ten minutes of your life.
Verona’s tax is €1.50 to €5 a night for hotels, €2 to €5 for B&Bs and flats and €3.50 for tourist lets, with 20 percent off for 15- to 25-year-olds and the over-70s, capped at four nights per person per month (Comune di Verona, 2026). It’s the only cap in Italy I know of that resets monthly.
Remember the red-zone caveat. Verona’s province is on Demoskopika’s list because of the lake. The Valpolicella and Soave vineyards are the day out, and on the fee dates in Venice, sleeping here and riding in is the plan our Venice guide recommends.
7. Why Sleep in Padua Instead of Venice?
Padua is about 26 minutes from Venice Santa Lucia by regional train, and its one crowded room is the Scrovegni Chapel. Giotto’s frescoes sell for €15 plus a €1 booking fee, in groups of 25 for a 15-minute visit, and pre-booking is mandatory (Padova Musei Civici, 2026). Everything else in the city is walk-in.
Padua’s tourist system counted 2.37 million overnight stays in 2024, its highest in seven years, and held that level through 2025 (Comune di Padova via Padovanews, March 2025). That count covers a wider area than the city itself, so it doesn’t sit on the same basis as the per-resident figures above.
Have you ever queued in an airlock? That’s the Scrovegni experience. You sit in a sealed glass room for a quarter of an hour while the air stabilises, then you get your quarter of an hour with the frescoes. It’s the only queue in Padua. The Orto Botanico, the world’s oldest university botanical garden, dates from 1545 and is UNESCO-listed. The Basilica del Santo, the oval of Prato della Valle and the university’s own anatomical theatre at the Bo are all open without a slot. The spritz was, by most accounts, invented here.
The tax rose on July 1, 2024 under council resolution 192 of that April, by between 50 cents and €2.50 depending on the band, and lands around €3.50 at a four-star and €2.50 at a three-star (Comune di Padova; PadovaOggi, 2024). Our 7, 10 and 14-day Italy itinerary comparison already swaps a Venice night for Padua on the two-week plan, and the Venice fee dates are the reason to do it on a shorter trip too.
8. Trieste Instead of a Third Venice Day
Two hours east of Venice, Trieste passed 2 million overnight stays in 2025, up 11.3 percent on 2024 and 61 percent on 2019, the fastest growth of any of the underrated cities in Italy (Regione FVG, February 2026). Against 198,622 residents, that’s still only about ten stays per head. The fastest train from Venice takes 1 hour 35.
Trieste isn’t quite Italy and that’s the appeal. The Habsburg waterfront opens onto Piazza Unità, the largest sea-facing square in Europe. Miramare castle sits on its headland a bus ride north. The Carso plateau and the Slovenian border are a day out. The Barcolana regatta on the second Sunday of October fills the gulf with sails and the hotels with sailors.
The cafés run on Viennese time and their own vocabulary. It took me three mornings to learn that a capo in b is a small cappuccino in a glass, and that asking plainly for a cappuccino gets you something twice the size.
The tax rose 50 percent on January 1, 2026. It now runs €3.80 at a five-star, €3.30 at a four, €3 at a three, €2.30 at a two-star or superior B&B and €2 at a comfort B&B, capped at five nights (Comune di Trieste, 2026). The province sits in Demoskopika’s red zone for its coast, not its streets. The bora wind is the other thing to plan for, and our month-by-month weather and crowd guide says when it blows.
9. Is Lucca a Better Base Than Pisa?
Lucca is about 80 minutes from Florence by regional train and 30 from Pisa, and its four kilometres of Renaissance walls are a park you cycle around. The city passed a million overnight stays again in 2025, about 11 per resident, and the first half alone brought 456,214 stays at an average of 2.7 nights each (Comune di Lucca, August 2025). The tax has been €3.50 to €5 a night since April 1, 2025, capped at three nights, the shortest cap in this guide (Comune di Lucca, 2025).
Lucca is the one name every list of underrated cities in Italy agrees on, so this section leads with what those lists leave out. The ladder: €3.50 at a one- to three-star, €4.50 at a four, €5 at a five, €3 at campsites and hostels. The week to avoid: Lucca Comics & Games, the largest comics festival in Europe, takes over the city in late October and early November, and rooms triple and sell out months ahead.
The rest of the year, the walls by bike, the oval of Piazza dell’Anfiteatro, the oaks on top of the Guinigi tower and Puccini’s birthplace fill a slow two days. The Garfagnana valley is the day out.
Pisa is the 30-minute add-on, not the base. Our Tuscany itinerary beyond Florence puts Lucca on a different axis from Siena and the Val d’Orcia, and our Florence guide treats it as the fourth-day trip. Both are right. Sleep here for two nights and the day-trippers are gone by six.
10. Matera Instead of a Fourth Rome Day
Basilicata took about 2.83 million overnight stays in 2025, up 12.4 percent on 2024 and 9.7 percent above 2019, the year Matera was European Capital of Culture (APT Basilicata, February 2026). Matera is about 1 hour 47 from Bari on the Ferrovie Appulo Lucane line, the same figure our Puglia guide uses.
The two Sassi districts, UNESCO-listed since 1993, are cave houses stacked up a ravine, and the best first hour is the walk from Piazza Vittorio Veneto down into them. Casa Noha’s film tells the story of the 1950s evictions. The Palombaro Lungo cistern under the main square is the engineering. The rock churches are the art. And the viewpoint across the gorge from the Murgia park, reached by a footbridge, is the photograph. Cave hotels are the thing to book, and they cost less than a Rome four-star.
Matera is the one city here where I can’t give you a firm tax figure. The comune publishes no current table.
An increase proposed in April 2026 met a wall of opposition from operators and was still unresolved in May (ANSA, April 2026; Quotidiano del Sud, May 2026). Budget €1.50 to €3 a night for a B&B or a cave apartment, and confirm it at booking.
One logistics rule from our Puglia travel guide applies here. Reach Matera from Bari, never from Lecce, which is about two and a half hours’ drive each way. The Bari line has closed for works in past summers, so check the timetable page the week you travel. Our Rome guide explains why a fourth Rome day is the one to trade.
11. Lecce Instead of Positano
Lecce logged about 1.1 million overnight stays in 2025 (Pugliapromozione, as charted in our Puglia guide), near 12 per resident, and it’s the one baroque city on this list with a coast 20 minutes away in either direction. A direct Frecciarossa from Rome takes about 5 hours 41, and Brindisi airport is 30 minutes away.
The stone is the sight. Lecce’s soft golden limestone let its carvers go wild, and Santa Croce’s front is the result. The LeccEcclesiae circuit covers the Duomo, Santa Croce and four more sites for €11, or €21 with the bell tower, and stays open until 9pm from April to September (LeccEcclesiae, 2026). The Roman amphitheatre sits half-excavated in the main square. Pasticciotto for breakfast, caffè leccese with almond milk in the afternoon, and Otranto or Gallipoli for the beach day.
From April 1 to October 31 the tax runs €5 at a five-star, €4.50 at a four, €4 at one to three stars, €3 at a B&B and €2.50 at a short let, capped at five nights. In winter it drops to a range of €1.50 to €4 (Comune di Lecce, 2026). Lecce’s ZTL is permanent, so park outside the walls, a fix our Puglia guide spells out. For the price of the alternative, the summer room averages in our Amalfi Coast vs Cinque Terre comparison make the case in one number.
12. Should You Base in Catania or Taormina?
Catania is the black-lava baroque city under Etna that most Sicily plans use as an airport and nothing more. Our east-versus-west Sicily itinerary already makes the case for an east-coast base here rather than two Taormina nights, where the bed line can double. Sicily’s tourist board doesn’t publish city-level stays, but it reports that Catania’s province has among the island’s flattest seasons, which is the useful number here: the city works in February as well as in July (Osservatorio Turistico Regione Siciliana, 2026). Syracuse is about 1 hour 10 by train, and Etna is the day.
Catania was rebuilt in dark volcanic stone after the 1693 earthquake, and the Duomo, the lava elephant on its fountain and the sweep of Via Etnea are the result. The fish market behind the cathedral is the loudest morning in Sicily. The Benedictine monastery, now the university’s humanities faculty, is the second-largest in Europe and runs guided visits. Arancini and pasta alla Norma were invented within a few streets of each other.
The tax has run since February 1, 2026 at €5 for a five-star, €4 at a four, €3.50 at one to three stars and B&Bs and €3 at a holiday flat, capped at four nights (Comune di Catania via PayTourist, 2026). Etna has been in an active phase since August, and the airport closes when the ash falls the wrong way, so read the INGV bulletin and the Sicily guide’s status line before you fly. Our honest Italy safety guide has the 112 number and the insurance advice.
How Do You Fit These Cities Into an Italy Trip?
One famous city, then one or two of these, all by train. Our itinerary guide’s rule holds: two weeks is where the swap pays best. But even a seven-night trip takes Bologna in place of a second Florence day, or Padua in place of a Venice night, without adding a single transfer. Here’s how far each of the twelve underrated cities in Italy is from the station you’re probably already using.
| From | To | Fastest train | Operator | From |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Milan Centrale | Turin | 47 min | Frecciarossa, Italo | €8.90 |
| Milan Centrale | Bergamo | 40 to 55 min | Trenord | about €6 |
| Milan Centrale | Bologna | 1h02 | Italo, Frecciarossa | €12.90 |
| Milan Centrale | Genoa | 1h30 | Intercity, Frecciarossa | about €12 |
| Milan Centrale | Verona | about 1h10 | Frecciarossa, Italo | check live |
| Bologna | Parma | about 50 min | Regionale | check live |
| Venice Santa Lucia | Padua | about 26 min | Regionale | check live |
| Venice Santa Lucia | Verona | about 1h10 | Frecciarossa, Regionale | check live |
| Venice Santa Lucia | Trieste | 1h35 | Frecciarossa, Regionale | about €12 |
| Florence SMN | Lucca | about 80 min | Regionale | about €10 |
| Bari Centrale | Matera | 1h47 | Ferrovie Appulo Lucane | about €5 |
| Rome Termini | Lecce | 5h41 direct | Frecciarossa | about €35 |
| Catania | Syracuse | about 1h10 | Regionale | about €8 |
Fares are the lowest published on the operator sites when I checked and rise with demand on the fast trains. RFI’s works on the Milan to Bologna and Florence to Rome high-speed lines stretch some journeys through September 2026, so check the live timetable the week you travel.
Three pairings work without a car. Milan, Turin and Bergamo form a triangle of trains under an hour each. Venice, Padua and Trieste sit on one line. Bari, Matera and Lecce share the Appulo Lucane railway and the Adriatic spine.
What about the ones that just missed the twelve? Bolzano passed a million stays in 2025 for the first time and has the priciest pizza in Altroconsumo’s survey at €15.04, and Trento is the other city in our Dolomites guide. Ravenna’s mosaics, Ferrara, Mantua, Modena, Perugia, Ascoli Piceno and Cagliari all earn a night. L’Aquila is Italian Capital of Culture for 2026. And Naples stopped being underrated some years ago, which is why it has its own guide.
The chart above is the bill nobody quotes. Every one of the underrated cities in Italy taxes overnight stays, per person, per night, paid at checkout and shown separately, and the caps matter as much as the rates. The surprise is Bologna, whose room-price ladder puts it above Venice. The relief is Trieste and Padua, still under €4 at a four-star even after their rises. Matera and Parma are missing from the chart on purpose: neither publishes a current per-band table, so ask before you book. Our tourist-tax guide has the full ladders for the famous cities.
Do these cities have seasons? Not the way Florence does. They have festival weeks. The ATP Finals in Turin, the Barcolana in Trieste, Comics & Games in Lucca and the opera summer in Verona each fill the hotels for a few days, and the Italy festival calendar has the dates. Outside those, September and October are the months to pick, and our best time to visit Italy guide has the weather for each. September is also Italy’s strike month, so check the calendar before you stamp a date on anything.
Here’s the part that gives “underrated” a shelf life. The alternatives are growing faster than the famous cities. Trieste’s stays rose 11.3 percent in 2025, Turin’s 6.7, Verona’s 6.4, and Bologna’s about 9 percent in the first half of the year, while the Venice comune fell 2.7 percent and the nation grew 2.1 (Regione FVG; Regione Veneto; ISTAT, 2026). Trieste and Genoa have already raised their taxes to match. Go now, sleep in the centre, and expect the numbers to follow you.
Underrated Cities in Italy: FAQ
What is the most underrated city in Italy?
Bologna, on the numbers. It took 5.4 million overnight stays in 2025 and filled 77.4 percent of its hotel rooms, sits 37 minutes from Florence by Frecciarossa, and its average room ran at under half of Venice’s on the last city-level hotel monitor (Trademark Italia). Turin is the answer if you want a big city at about 5.6 stays per resident.
Which Italian cities have the fewest tourists?
Of the twelve here, Turin at about 5.6 overnight stays per resident in 2025 and Genoa at about 6 are the least dense, against about 31 in Florence and roughly 195 in Venice’s historic centre. Every figure is indicative: stays from the regional and comune releases, residents from ISTAT at January 1, 2026.
Is Bologna cheaper than Florence?
On the room, yes. Bologna’s hotels averaged €104.85 a night against Florence’s €205.09 on the last monitor that priced both cities (Trademark Italia, 2023). On the tax, no. Bologna charges up to €7 a night in 2026 against Florence’s €8 ceiling, so the saving is the room, not the tax, and it’s still well over €100 a night.
Can I visit these cities without a car?
Yes, all twelve. Ten are under 90 minutes from Milan, Venice, Florence or Bari by train, Lecce is a direct 5 hours 41 from Rome, and Matera is 1 hour 47 from Bari on the Appulo Lucane line (operator timetables, 2026). Rent a car only for the Langhe, the Garfagnana or the Salento beaches.
Do smaller Italian cities charge tourist tax?
Yes, per person per night at checkout, from about €2 at the bottom of Padua’s ladder to €7 in Bologna’s top band in 2026. Trieste raised its rate 50 percent in January, Parma raised every band on the same date, and Genoa raised its B&B and flat rates on August 1. Matera publishes no current table, so confirm that one at booking (comune tariff pages, 2026).
Underrated Cities in Italy: The Short Version
Four cities take 17.2 percent of the country’s nights, so the other 82.8 percent is where the room is. None of these twelve is news to Italians, which is exactly why they work. The rules are lightest here, the rooms are cheapest here, and the queue is a 15-minute slot in Padua rather than a named ticket booked in April.
- Pick by the number, not the photograph. Bologna at about 14 stays per resident against Florence’s 31 is the clearest swap in Italy.
- Every city here is on a main line. Ten are under 90 minutes from a hub, and none needs a car.
- Budget the tax everywhere: €2 to €7 a night, per person, capped at three to eight nights depending on the city.
- Skip the festival weeks if price is the point: ATP Finals, Barcolana, Lucca Comics, the Verona opera summer.
- Go now. Trieste and Bologna are growing at three to five times the national rate, and the taxes are already following.
For the day-by-day maths, our 7, 10 and 14-day itinerary comparison shows where each swap fits. Our best time to visit Italy guide picks the month, the tourist-tax guide has the national table, and the region-by-region destinations guide shows the rest of the country around these twelve underrated cities in Italy.
