The Most Beautiful Water Wonders in Italy
22 places · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful water wonders in Italy are Lake Garda, Capri and Lake Maggiore. The list covers 22 lakes, waterfalls, islands and beaches. Last updated 14 October 2026.
Italy's waters are shaped as much by people as by nature. The Alps and the Dolomites left glacial and landslide-dammed lakes of startling colour; the volcanic band running down the peninsula feeds hot springs that the Etruscans and Romans already bathed in; and two long coastlines wrap around islands like Sardinia, whose limestone cliffs drop into some of the clearest water in the Mediterranean. Over all of it lies two thousand years of engineering, from Roman cisterns to Baroque island gardens.
In the Dolomites, Lago di Braies, Lake Carezza and Lake Sorapiss show the range of mountain lakes, from a wooden-boathouse reflection to a milky turquoise pool beneath pale cliffs. Further west, the Reschensee holds the half-submerged bell tower of Curon, a village flooded when the reservoir was created. On Lake Maggiore, Isola Bella is an entire island turned into a palace and terraced garden by the Borromeo family, and its namesake off Taormina in Sicily is a tiny islet joined to the shore by a sandbar.
The Cascata delle Marmore in Umbria is a waterfall the Romans made by diverting the Velino River. Near Naples, the Piscina Mirabilis is a vast vaulted cistern that once held water for the imperial fleet at Misenum. In Tuscany, Bagno Vignoni has a thermal pool where its village square should be, and Bagni San Filippo has built white mineral cascades. In Sardinia, Cala Goloritzé and Cala Mariolu sit on the wild Gulf of Orosei.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lake Garda | Lake | |
| 2 | Capri | Island | |
| 3 | Lake Maggiore | Lake | |
| 4 | Lake Como | Lake | |
| 5 | Lago di Braies | Lake | |
| 6 | Vulcano | Volcano | ✓ |
| 7 | Cascata delle Marmore | Waterfall | |
| 8 | Isola Bella, Lake Maggiore | Island | |
| 9 | Lake Carezza (Karersee) | Lake | |
| 10 | Cala Goloritzé | Beach | |
| 11 | Isola Bella, Taormina | Island | |
| 12 | Lake Orta | Lake | |
| 13 | Piscina Mirabilis | Reservoir | |
| 14 | Bagno Vignoni | Hot spring | |
| 15 | Reschensee | Reservoir | |
| 16 | Terme di Saturnia | Hot spring | |
| 17 | Bagni San Filippo | Hot spring | |
| 18 | Lake Sorapiss | Lake | |
| 19 | Cala Mariolu | Beach | |
| 20 | The Pink Beach | Beach | |
| 21 | Cascate del Mulino | Hot spring | |
| 22 | Rabbit beach | Beach |
01 Lake Garda
Lago di Garda
Italy · 33.1 km from Verona45.633° N 10.667° E
Image by Leonhard_Niederwimmer from Pixabay The lake owes its mild climate to its sheer volume of water, which keeps winters unusually soft for a latitude of 46° north. Olives, cypresses and palms grow along the shore, and at Limone the old terraced lemon houses recall a time when citrus was grown here commercially. The Romans knew the lake as Benacus and built villas along it; the remains of a vast Roman villa at the tip of the Sirmione peninsula are known as the Grottoes of Catullus.
02 Capri
Isola di Capri
Italy · 32.4 km from Naples40.550° N 14.233° E
Image by babusz from Pixabay The Romans started it. Augustus developed Capri as a private retreat, and his successor Tiberius, according to Tacitus, built twelve villas here; in AD 27 he moved to the island for good and governed the empire from it until his death ten years later. The ruins of Villa Jovis, the largest of his residences, sit on the island's eastern headland and are among the best-preserved Roman villas in Italy.
03 Lake Maggiore
Lago Maggiore
Italy · 22.3 km from Lugano46.098° N 8.715° E
Image by Makalu from Pixabay The lake bends so much that from almost nowhere can you see more than a part of it, which is its charm: the view keeps changing. The upper end is fully Alpine, hemmed in by steep slopes; the middle runs between gentler hills; the south opens onto the Lombard plain. On clear days the snowfields of Monte Rosa, about 50 km to the west, stand over the water.
04 Lake Como
Lago di Como
Italy · 25.6 km from Como46.000° N 9.267° E
Image by GPoulsen from Pixabay The shores have been a retreat for the rich since Pliny the Younger built two villas here in the 1st century AD. The tradition revived in the Renaissance and has left a chain of gardens that are the lake's real treasure.
05 Lago di Braies
Italy46.694° N 12.085° E
Image by 16018388 from Pixabay The best way to see it is on foot. A loop of a little over three kilometres follows the whole shore: the western side is broad and level, the eastern side narrow, rocky and stepped, with the view shifting at every bend between the open water, the forested slopes and the rock walls above.
Did you know? The lakeside Grand Hotel Pragser Wildsee opened in 1899, built to designs by the architect Otto Schmid for hotelier Emma Hellenstainer and her son Eduard.
06 Vulcano
Isola di Vulcano
Italy38.404° N 14.966° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Bernard Gagnon · CC BY 4.0 The main event is the Gran Cratere, the rim of the Fossa cone behind the port. Its last eruption, from 1888 to 1890, was studied by the geologist Giuseppe Mercalli, and the explosive, cannon-like blasts he described gave science the term "Vulcanian eruption".
07 Cascata delle Marmore
Italy42.551° N 12.715° E
Image by crilaman from Pixabay The story continued for nearly two thousand years. After the fall of Rome the channel silted up and the marshes returned. Pope Gregory XII had a new cut dug in 1422; Paul III commissioned Antonio da Sangallo the Younger to open another in 1545; and in 1598 Clement VIII inaugurated a widened channel with a regulating sluice designed by Giovanni Fontana.
Did you know? Giovanni Fontana, who designed the 1598 regulating sluice, was the brother of Domenico Fontana, one of the leading architects of papal Rome.
08 Isola Bella, Lake Maggiore
Isola Bella
Italy · 36 km from Lugano45.895° N 8.527° E
Image by maxmann from Pixabay Until 1632 it was little more than a rocky outcrop with a fishing village. That year Count Carlo III Borromeo began transforming it into a residence for his wife, Isabella D'Adda, whose name, softened to Isola Bella, the island still carries. The Milanese architect Angelo Crivelli laid out the first plans for both palace and gardens.
Did you know? The neoclassical ballroom was designed in the late 18th century by the architect Giuseppe Zanoia.
09 Lake Carezza (Karersee)
Lago di Carezza
Italy · 19.4 km from Bolzano46.409° N 11.575° E
Image by shogun from Pixabay Its colours are the reason for its Ladin name, "rainbow lake". Depending on the light, the depth and the season, the water moves through bottle-green, emerald, turquoise and deep blue, often several at once from the shallows to the middle. The lake has no visible inflow: it is fed by underground springs from the Latemar, so its level and size change noticeably with the seasons. It reaches a little over 20 metres at its deepest.
Did you know? John Singer Sargent painted the lake in 1914 in a watercolour titled Karer See.
10 Cala Goloritzé
Italy40.108° N 9.690° E
Image by Giglio_di_mare from Pixabay The spire is a landmark of Italian climbing. It was first climbed in the late 1970s by Maurizio Zanolla, known as Manolo, and Alessandro Gogna, and a route with the fanciful name "Sinfonia dei Mulini a Vento" became one of its classics. From the beach the climbers look tiny against the grey-gold wall.
Did you know? The gorge leading down to the sea shelters an untouched holm oak forest, along with strawberry trees, terebinth, ash and black hornbeam.
11 Isola Bella, Taormina
Isola Bella
Italy37.850° N 15.300° E
Michal Osmenda from Brussels, Belgium · CC BY-SA 2.0 In 1806 King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies gave the island to Taormina. In 1890 it was bought by Florence Trevelyan, an Englishwoman who had settled in the town; she built a small house facing the sea and planted rare and exotic species that flourished there.
Did you know? In October 1984 the Sicilian authorities declared the island a monument of rare natural, historic and cultural value.
12 Lake Orta
Lago d'Orta
Italy45.810° N 8.396° E
Image by fabiovaleggia from Pixabay Local tradition holds that Saint Julius came here at the end of the 4th century, found no boatman willing to take him across, spread his cloak on the water and sailed over on it, then drove out the serpents and dragons living on the island before founding a church. The basilica that stands there today was enlarged over the centuries and reached its present Romanesque form around the end of the 11th century.
Did you know? The Sacro Monte di Orta joined the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2003 with the other Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy.
13 Piscina Mirabilis
Piscina mirabilis
Italy · 14.7 km from Naples40.795° N 14.080° E
© Ra Boe / Wikipedia Create the proper attribution for your usage by clicking on this button! This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license. Attribution: Ra Boe / Wikipedia You are free: to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work to remix – to adapt the work Under the following conditions: attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. share alike – If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same or compatible license as the original. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en CC BY-SA 3.0 de Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 de true true Internet: Titel Foto: Ra Boe / Wikipedia , Original ; Lizenz: CC by-sa 3.0 Print: Titel Foto: Ra Boe / Wikipedia, Lizenz: CC by-sa 3.0 I have published this image as author Ra Boe under the " CC-BY-SA-3.0 " in Wikipedia. This means that free, commercial usage outside of Wikipedia is permitted under the following licence terms: Online media: The author " RaBoe/Wikipedia " is named A weblink to the original image is provided: //commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Piscina_Mirabilis_2010-by-RaBoe-18.jpg A copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/legalcode ) for, this License with every copy Print media: The author " RaBoe/Wikipedia" is named A copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/legalcode ) for, this License with every copy Please send me a specimen copy or the URL of the website where the image is used. Please write an email to raboe001-at-web.de , if you need the image in a higher resolution need my postal address for sending a specimen copy have further questions about the terms of the licence PS: In case of refusal of the above terms the author reserves the right to take legal action. This license and the rights granted hereunder will terminate automatically upon any breach by you of the terms of this license. In this case the author reserves to demand declaration to cease and desist, and compensation (according to the MFM fee references currently in force). Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. Foto selbst aufgenommen mit Nikon-D50: Objektiv Tamron 18 - 250 mm von Wikipedia-User: Ra Boe This photo was taken with an Nikon-D50: , Objective Tamron 18 - 250 mm by Wikipedia user: Ra Boe · CC BY-SA 3.0 de It dates from the reign of Augustus and was filled by the Aqua Augusta, the aqueduct built after 33 BC to bring spring water to the towns and villas around the Bay of Naples. The usual explanation is that it supplied the Classis Misenensis, the Roman fleet based in the nearby harbour of Misenum, which needed large amounts of fresh water for its men and ships.
Did you know? One of the side chambers added later preserves a floor with a maze-pattern mosaic and a central panel of coloured limestone tiles, apparently from an earlier phase.
14 Bagno Vignoni
Italy · 38.8 km from Siena43.028° N 11.619° E
Image by alefolsom from Pixabay The waters have been used since antiquity: Etruscan and Roman finds in the area show their early fame, and the village's position close to the Via Francigena, the great medieval pilgrim road to Rome, kept a stream of travellers passing by. Among the notable guests remembered here are Saint Catherine of Siena, Pope Pius II — the humanist pope who rebuilt nearby Pienza — and Lorenzo de' Medici. The pool is still known as the Baths of St Catherine.
Did you know? A loggia on one side of the pool is dedicated to Saint Catherine of Siena, who is remembered among the spa's early visitors.
15 Reschensee
Lago di Resia
Italy46.801° N 10.531° E
Image by Glavo from Pixabay One piece of it never went under completely. The 14th-century bell tower of that church was simply left standing as the water rose around it, too solid and too tall to bother demolishing, and it has jutted from the surface ever since — the only visible trace of a place that otherwise exists only in memory and old photographs. It has become the valley's emblem, printed on everything from hiking maps to wine labels.
Did you know? In 1947 the Swiss company Elektrowatt lent Montecatini 30 million Swiss francs to finance the dam.
16 Terme di Saturnia
Italy42.658° N 11.516° E
Raimond Spekking · CC BY-SA 4.0 People have bathed here since Etruscan and Roman times, when travellers on the Via Clodia stopped to take the waters. A papal bull of 1188 already lists the Bagno di Saturnia, with lodgings for bathers and a mill downstream turned by the spring's flow. The baths decayed in the late Middle Ages, when Siena razed the outlaw-ridden village in 1300, were restored in 1572 during a drainage scheme, and flourished again from the nineteenth century.
17 Bagni San Filippo
Italy42.930° N 11.701° E
LigaDue · CC BY-SA 4.0 The springs carry sulphate, calcium and magnesium, and their temperatures vary widely: the source feeding the Fosso Bianco runs at about 48 °C, while others are far cooler, so that the pools change temperature from one to the next depending on how far they lie from the hot outlets.
Did you know? The miracle of the healing spring first appears in Servite writings of the late 15th century, which likened Philip striking the rock to Moses in the desert.
18 Lake Sorapiss
Lago di Sorapiss
Italy46.520° N 12.224° E
Image by shogun from Pixabay Above the water rises the slender rock tower known as the Dito di Dio, the Finger of God, at 2,603 metres, one of the most recognisable silhouettes in this part of the Dolomites, and next to the lake stands the Rifugio Vandelli mountain hut. The surroundings are as much a part of the place as the lake itself: a circle of cliffs and scree, and the lake lying in the bottom of the cirque like a pool of coloured glass.
Did you know? Hidden behind the Dito di Dio rises Punta Sorapiss, at 3,205 metres the highest summit of the whole Sorapiss group.
19 Cala Mariolu
Italy40.123° N 9.676° E
Lddcrs · CC BY-SA 4.0 The real show is the water. Over a pale pebble floor the sea moves through emerald, turquoise and deep blue within a few strokes from the shore, and the clarity is such that boats moored offshore seem to hover above their own shadows. A large rock known in Sardinian as sa perda 'e su saltatori stands at the water's edge and serves as a natural jetty, and a small cave opens near the beach.
Did you know? The small, smooth white pebbles of the beach are nicknamed 'lenticchie', lentils, for their shape.
20 The Pink Beach
Spiaggia rosa
Italy41.279° N 9.356° E
Luca Bittau · CC BY-SA 4.0 The colour is biological. Mixed into the sand are minute fragments of coral and mollusc shells and, above all, the skeletons of two marine organisms: the bryozoan Miriapora truncata and the foraminifer Miniacina miniacea, which live on the sea bed offshore. Waves break the remains apart and wash them ashore, where they mix with the quartz grains and give the beach its rosy hue.
Did you know? Once a Sardinian court returned Budelli to the state, the national park planned to use the island for environmental education.
21 Cascate del Mulino
Italy42.648° N 11.513° E
Raimond Spekking · CC BY-SA 4.0 5 °C, with a flow of close to 800 litres per second. According to the spa's own account, the water spends decades underground on its way from the Monte Amiata area, dissolving minerals from limestone and travertine before it surfaces. By the time it reaches the falls downstream it has cooled somewhat.
Did you know? By 1216 the baths had passed to the Aldobrandeschi counts, and in the early 14th century Siena, Orvieto and rival noble families fought over Saturnia.
22 Rabbit beach
Spiaggia dei Conigli
Italy35.513° N 12.558° E
Hein56didden · CC BY-SA 3.0 The beach and islet are among the last places in Italy where the loggerhead sea turtle, Caretta caretta, still comes ashore to lay its eggs. They belong to the Isola di Lampedusa nature reserve, managed by the environmental association Legambiente since 1995, and the waters around the islet lie in the strictest zone of the Pelagie Islands marine protected area.
Did you know? Lampedusa is also the only Italian home of the hooded snake, a small North African species.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful water wonders in Italy?
- On our list, Lake Garda ranks first, followed by Capri and Lake Maggiore.
- Is the Marmore waterfall man-made?
- Yes. The Cascata delle Marmore was created by the Romans in the 3rd century BC, when a channel was cut to drain the Velino River into the Nera, and it remains one of the tallest man-made waterfalls in the world.
- Why is there a church tower in the Reschensee?
- The bell tower belongs to the old village of Curon (Graun), which was flooded in 1950 when a dam raised the lake; only the 14th-century tower was left standing above the water.
- What was the Piscina Mirabilis used for?
- It was a Roman cistern at Bacoli, fed by the Aqua Augusta aqueduct, that stored fresh water for the Roman fleet based at Misenum.
- How many lakes, waterfalls, islands and beaches are on this list in Italy?
- The list covers 22 lakes, waterfalls, islands and beaches.