A small town on the Lazio coast, an hour or so south of Rome, has just been voted the best beach in Europe in Condé Nast Traveller's 2026 Readers' Choice Awards — and most international travellers have never heard of it. Sperlonga has long been a favourite escape for Romans, but it has stayed off the foreign radar. That looks set to change.
The town earns its reputation on two fronts: sand and history. Four beaches with Blue Flag status for water quality stretch along the Tyrrhenian coast, while a whitewashed medieval old town perches on a cliff above them, reached by stairs cut into the rock. Up top, narrow lanes open onto a piazza of cafés where locals gather for evening aperitivo. The high-altitude layout is no accident — residents moved uphill in the Middle Ages to watch for Saracen pirate raids.
Sperlonga sits on the so-called Ulysses Riviera and belongs to the Borghi Più Belli d'Italia, the association of Italy's most beautiful villages. Legend even places Odysseus on this shore, with the sorceress Circe supposedly living on nearby Monte Circeo.
The town's name comes from the Latin for caves, and its most remarkable sight is exactly that: a sea grotto once used by the emperor Tiberius. Workers building the coastal Via Flacca in the 1950s uncovered his villa and the grotto, which was filled with colossal marble sculptures of scenes from the Odyssey — including a huge Polyphemus about to be blinded. When officials tried to move the finds to Rome, locals blockaded the vehicles, and the sculptures stayed, now housed at the on-site National Archaeological Museum beside the villa ruins.
The Homer connection is being leaned into: new murals of Odyssey scenes by Marco Longo of Terracina's Robof Studio now cover old-town walls, with verses from the epic painted along the stairs. The timing coincides with buzz around Christopher Nolan's Odyssey film adaptation.
Practically speaking, this is an easy win. A regional train from Rome takes about an hour and 20 minutes, making it a feasible day trip — though a weekend gives you time for the beaches and the museum. There are no luxury resorts: expect clean, simple places like Hotel La Nave, a retro family-run hotel right on the sand that throws in complimentary loungers and umbrellas at its beach club. On the beach itself, you can use the free stretches with your own umbrella, or rent at a club — book ahead for lunch. Bazzano Beach served the source author a standout fritto misto and spaghetti alle vongole with local white wine.
For anyone who loves the idea of the Amalfi Coast but not the queues, Sperlonga offers a similar mix of sea, food and ancient Rome in a fraction of the crowds — at least until the 2026 award changes that.
