If you love bright, beautiful surroundings then a vacation in Italy is sure to delight. Not only is it a vibrant country full of art, lush landscapes, and colourful characters but it is also home to several towns that are famous for their picturesque looks in bright hues. For perfect spaces to lift your spirits and to act as dreamy backdrops for vacation pictures of a lifetime, these are the most colourful towns and areas to visit during a holiday in Italy!
Burano
This neighbourhood in Venice is located on an island on the Northern Venetian Lagoon and is a technicolour dream! Painted in highly saturated hues, the buildings clustered along the canal here stand in sharp contrast with some of the more famous, gleaming white monuments of the city. The exact reason behind the painting of the buildings of the area in these bright shades is unknown, lost to time and the fog of the lagoon, though funnily enough, one of the local legends is that they were painted this way so that local fishermen could find their way home through said fog. It is even said that some colours have remained in families for centuries.
Today, the town is well-known and endlessly visited and photographed for this distinctive appearance, which has become important to the city. Burano is now protected and a specific colour system has been developed by local authorities. In fact, if you want to paint a house in the area, you have to first apply for official permission from the government.
If you are lucky enough to visit the neighbourhood during a stay in a vacation rental in Venice and come on a sunny day, the image of the candy-toned buildings set against blue skies and a mirror-like canal is sure to astound.
Positano
Chic, exclusive, and elegant, Positano is perhaps the most famous resort on the Amalfi Coast. Accordingly, it draws flocks of day-trippers in addition to tourists staying in town each day during the summer months. Compared to Burano, it does not present quite so strikingly and vibrant an array of saturated rainbow hues but it is still colourful and lovely, with buildings in pretty pastel shades stacked up against the cliffs from impossibly blue waters.
The colour of Positano is also found in details all through the town – in the pink, fuchsia, and purples of the Bougainvillea flowers that grow along streets and around homes; in the brightly coloured parasols lining the beach; in the works of art being sold outside boutiques, and more.
So, if you are booking a villa on the Amalfi Coast, it is well worth braving the crowds to take it all in for yourself – or come outside the regular tourist season and have a bit more breathing room to enjoy it all.
Riomaggiore
Another famously beautiful coastal town, Riomaggiore is located in Liguria and is the most southerly of the five villages of the renowned Cinque Terre. Surrounded by lush green hills and vineyards, with rich azure waters in front, the town of Riomaggiore rises from a pretty little stone harbour carved out of the base of the cliff-face as a stack of bright yellow, orange, red, and salmony-pink buildings with green shuttered windows.
Many of its well-known neighbours in the Cinque Terre are similarly colourful and striking but the shades in Riomaggiore are arguably among the brightest. Certainly, however, if you wish to visit a series of impossibly pretty and bright towns, then booking a vacation rental in the Cinque Terre and exploring the area is a great idea!
Alberobello
Alberobello, meanwhile, has less shades to take in but is colourful in its own way. Like many other towns you will see if you book a villa in Apulia, Alberobello is largely white-washed as is tradition in this part of the world. Yet, the conical tops of the traditional trulli buildings in certain neighbourhoods, with their patterns of hearts and phrases, the brightly-coloured blooms, the pumpkins dotted around in the harvest season as decorations, and the rich blue skies so often overhead all ensure that you could hardly level the accusation that this is not a colourful place!
