The best hill towns you can reach by train in Campania
Away from the bay, Campania rises into ridges of grey tuff and pale limestone, terraced with vines and broken by chestnut woods that turn copper in late October. The houses are built from the same volcanic stone they stand on, which keeps the rooms cool through the long inland summers and holds the damp through winter. This is buffalo mozzarella country on the lower slopes and greco and fiano country higher up, with slow-cooked pork, hand-cut pasta and bitter greens on the table when the heat breaks. Regional trains thread the valleys, following rivers that carved the routes long before the rails did.
Most people arriving in Campania go straight for the coast: Naples, then the Amalfi road, Sorrento, Pompeii, Capri on the hydrofoil. The Amalfi Coast in particular absorbs an enormous share of everyone who lands at Capodichino, and in August the single road above Positano moves at walking pace. It is spectacular, and it is also the reason the region's reputation stops at the water.
The same volcanic soil, the same wine, the same cooking carries on inland, up the Volturno, the Calore and the Sele, and that is where these towns are. Some sit on Roman roads, some on Samnite hilltops, some beside abbeys and aqueducts that predate the coastal resorts by centuries. Fewer people go, and every one of them is on a line you can ride from Naples without hiring anything.
Of the 66 communes we have mapped in Campania, 10 qualify as hill towns you can reach by train: each is an inland hill settlement, and we have confirmed each is reachable without a car. The smallest, Tufo, has 772 residents.
If you are still choosing, we have also written The best hidden hill towns you can reach by train in Campania and The best hill towns you can reach by train within 90 minutes of Napoli.
Tufo
Why visit Tufo
The name Tufo comes from the volcanic tuff stone the hill is built on, the same stone that runs through the slopes below and gives the local wine its mineral edge. The village sits on top of that stone at 250 meters, with the cellars at its foot and the vineyards spreading out around both.
Sulfur was mined in shafts cut into the cliffs beneath the village, work that shaped the local economy for over a century before it stopped. Most visitors are wine buyers, not tourists.
They drive in for a tasting, walk the steep main street to the medieval castle on top, and leave by dinner. The village stays quiet after they go.
What the stone gave the place economically it also gave it physically: a hill town built from the same rock that flavors what it grows, mined until the ground itself ran out of use.
We confirmed you can reach this one by train.
What to see in Tufo
- Castello di Tufo. Medieval fortress on the top of the hill, rebuilt after the 1732 and 1980 earthquakes that damaged the village below.
- Cantine di Marzo. The cellars sit at the foot of the village, where Greco di Tufo has been produced commercially since the family took up winemaking here.
- Ex Miniere di Zolfo. Abandoned mines in the cliffs below the village, their shafts left the rock marked with rust-colored scars after closure.
How to get to Tufo
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Salerno is roughly 55 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June covers the green months in Irpinia: vine leaves unfurling on the slopes, mild evenings on the main street. September through early October is harvest, when the cellars open more often than usual and the village smells of crushed Greco. July and August get hot in the valley, though 250 meters keeps the worst of it off.
Auletta
Why visit Auletta
Auletta sits at 280 meters on a hill on the right bank of the Tanagro river, at the northern edge of the Vallo di Diano, inside the Cilento, Vallo di Diano and Alburni National Park. The town was fortified by the year 1000 and is mentioned as Olibola in 1095, possibly from olea, Latin for oil.
The medieval core is reached through three gates, Porta Castello, Porta del Fiume and Porta Rivellino. The Castello Marchesale, twelfth century in origin, took its current shape in the fifteenth, when defensive systems were added; it is privately owned by the Maioli Castriota Scanderbech family.
The 1857 Great Neapolitan earthquake destroyed much of the town and was documented by the Irish seismologist Robert Mallet, in the first systematic post-earthquake survey ever attempted. In 1861, immediately after Unification, locals rose against the Piedmontese army and 45 were killed in what is remembered as the Auletta Massacre.
The town is now a Città delle Grotte for its proximity to the Pertosa-Auletta caves.
We confirmed you can reach this one by train.
What to see in Auletta
- Castello Marchesale. Twelfth-century fortress in the highest part of the centro storico, reshaped in the fifteenth century with defensive walls and now privately held.
- Chiesa di San Nicola di Mira. Parish church inside the medieval walls, holds a relic of San Donato di Ripacandida, the town's patron saint.
- Borgo dei Mestieri. Restored part of the centro storico turned into a living museum of traditional Cilento crafts, with workshops on stone, iron and clay.
How to get to Auletta
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Salerno is roughly 49 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through October is the open season in the Tanagro valley: clear days, mild nights and the National Park trails dry enough to walk. July and August push past thirty-three degrees in the valley; the centro storico on the hill catches a slight breeze. April, May and early June are the right weeks for the Alburni hikes and the Pertosa-Auletta caves, which run at fifty degrees year-round and feel cold off a hot afternoon.
Calitri
Why visit Calitri
Calitri sits on a mountain above the upper Ofanto valley, sixty-five kilometers inland from Salerno. The town stacks down the slope in a sheet of pastel houses that has earned it the nickname positano dell'entroterra: an old settlement folded into a hillside rather than a coastline.
The clay underneath those houses gave the town its old craft. Streets are still named for the potter's wheel and for the Faenza artisans who arrived in the 1600s, a trade that runs from that century straight through to the workshops active today.
The 1980 earthquake cuts through that continuity. It killed two residents, triggered landslides, and left a large part of the centro storico uninhabitable for years; many houses were never reoccupied and stand today alongside the rebuilt blocks, upper village and lower streets sharing one slope but two different histories of repair.
What holds the place together now is deliberate: a festival built specifically to give these depopulated lands their footing back, run every August since 2013. A hillside town, in other words, that turned its own damage and its own craft into the same civic project.
We confirmed you can reach this one by train.
What to see in Calitri
- Borgo Castello. Medieval upper village built from the stones of the destroyed feudal castle, partly abandoned after the 1980 earthquake, now hosting the ceramics museum and the Sponz Fest.
- Museo della Ceramica. Ceramics museum inside the Borgo Castello, open since 2008, with Calitrian pieces from the fourth century BC to the modern revival workshops.
- Chiesa di Santa Lucia. Hilltop church above the centro storico, the high point of the town with views across the Ofanto valley and the Alta Irpinia ridges.
How to get to Calitri
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Foggia is roughly 90 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the working months for Calitri. The 530-meter altitude keeps the summer breeze, and the upper alleys are walkable. July and August are hot, though Sponz Fest in late August pulls thousands of visitors for three days regardless.
Caiazzo
Why visit Caiazzo
Caiazzo sits at 200 meters on a small hill above the Volturno, forty kilometres north of Naples, between the Matese foothills and the Caserta plain. The town is older than the surrounding province: Caiatia was already a Samnite then Roman centre, and the medieval cathedral preserves a Lombard crypt under its eleventh-century floor.
What pulls visitors today is not the cathedral but a pizzeria. In 2012 Franco Pepe, third-generation baker, opened Pepe in Grani in an eighteenth-century palazzo on Vico San Giovanni Battista, working long-fermented doughs with local Pallagrello flour, Conciato Romano cheese and Caiazzo olive oil.
Tre spicchi from Gambero Rosso for ten straight years and a Michelin world-best ranking in 2018 turned the centro storico into a destination that handles 800 pizzas a day. Caiazzo is a Cittaslow, a Città del Vino for Pallagrello and Casavecchia, and a Città dell'Olio.
We confirmed you can reach this one by train.
What to see in Caiazzo
- Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta. Eleventh-century cathedral with a Lombard crypt beneath the floor, baroque interior and the relics of San Stefano Minicillo, patron of Caiazzo.
- Castello di Caiazzo. Medieval castle of Lombard origin on the highest point of the centro storico, remodelled under the Normans and later princes of Caiazzo.
- Pepe in Grani. Franco Pepe's pizzeria in an eighteenth-century palazzo on Vico San Giovanni Battista, ranked best in the world by Michelin in 2018.
How to get to Caiazzo
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Napoli is roughly 53 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the cleanest months in Caiazzo, when the Volturno valley is green and the Pepe in Grani tables are easier to book at lunch. July and August push the Caserta plain past thirty-five degrees and the centro storico empties between two and six in the afternoon. Harvest runs September and October for Pallagrello and Casavecchia and pulls weekend wine visitors.
Alife
Why visit Alife
Alife sits at 110 meters at the southern foot of the Matese, the rectangular Roman walls still tracing the original plan of the 326 BC Latin colony founded after the Samnite Wars. The circuit runs 1.9 kilometres, with towers every 39 meters and four monumental gates on the cardo and decumano.
Inside the walls lies the largely buried Roman amphitheatre, 48 by 38 meters, the fourth largest in Italy after Rome, Pompeii and Capua. The Cryptoporticum, a 100-meter underground gallery, has been kept legible by recent excavation.
The town gives its name to the Cipolla di Alife, a heirloom red onion documented locally since Roman times and still cultivated on the irrigated plain along the Volturno. Modern Alife sits inside the Parco Regionale del Matese and along the Via Francigena del Sud, with extra-virgin olive oil and Pallagrello and Casavecchia wines on the surrounding slopes.
We confirmed you can reach this one by train.
What to see in Alife
- Mura romane di Alife. Rectangular Roman walls running 1.9 kilometres, with towers every 39 meters and four monumental gates on the original cardo and decumano of the 326 BC colony.
- Anfiteatro Romano. Largely buried amphitheatre of 48 by 38 meters, the fourth largest in Italy after Rome, Pompeii and Capua, dating to the early imperial period.
- Criptoportico Romano. Underground gallery more than 100 meters long, well preserved beneath the centro storico, kept open after recent archaeological excavation.
How to get to Alife
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Napoli is roughly 76 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the open months along the Matese foothills, when the Volturno plain is green and the Roman walls walk at a reasonable temperature. July and August push the inland Caserta past thirty-five degrees and the amphitheatre site closes mid-afternoon to protect visitors and stone. The Sagra della Cipolla di Alife happens in mid-September and pulls weekend visitors from Naples and Caserta.
Montesarchio
Why visit Montesarchio
Montesarchio sits at 300 meters at the foot of Monte Taburno, eighteen kilometers southwest of Benevento. The Latin name is Caudium, an ancient Samnite city on the road from Beneventum to Capua, and the surrender at the pass below it was so unprecedented that the Roman Senate refused to ratify the treaty that followed.
The medieval town climbed the hill above the valley around its castle and tower, and that upper cluster still marks the highest and oldest part of the centro, with the newer town spreading below it into the Valle Caudina. The commune is a Borgo più bello d'Italia, a Città del Vino, and a Città della Nocciola.
What holds the place together is the vertical relationship between valley floor and hilltop: a road town and a battle site below, a fortified refuge and lookout above, the second built to guard what the first could not.
We confirmed you can reach this one by train.
What to see in Montesarchio
- Castello di Montesarchio. Medieval fortress on the hill above the town, restored and reopened in 2007 as part of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale del Sannio Caudino.
- Torre di Montesarchio. Cylindrical fifteenth-century tower next to the castle at 420 meters, the highest point of the centro and visible across the Valle Caudina.
- Museo Archeologico Nazionale del Sannio Caudino. Archaeological museum inside the castle, holding the krater as its centerpiece among the wider Samnite and Roman finds of the valley.
How to get to Montesarchio
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Napoli is roughly 68 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through early June and September into October are the months for Montesarchio. The Valle Caudina greens and the trails up Monte Taburno open without the haze of late summer. July and August can climb past thirty-five degrees on the floor of the valley, though the castle and tower at 420 meters cool earlier in the evening.
Sessa Aurunca
Why visit Sessa Aurunca
Sessa Aurunca sits at 203 meters on the southwest slope of the extinct volcano Roccamonfina, between the Garigliano river and the Aurunci hills, forty kilometers west-northwest of Caserta. The Aurunci, the Italic people who held this land before Rome, gave the town its name; the Latin colony of Suessa Aurunca was founded here in 313 BC on the road between Capua and Rome.
The Roman theater on the slope below the cathedral is one of the largest in southern Italy, with stage decoration found in the 2000s excavations now on display in the Castello Ducale. The Cattedrale dei Santi Pietro e Paolo was built in 1103 over an Augustan-era temple, with twelve antique columns in the nave, an ambon and Easter candelabrum covered in Cosmatesque marble inlay, and a Byzantine-influenced apse.
The commune is Città dell'Olio for the Aurunci olive groves, Città del Tartufo for the truffles of the Roccamonfina foothills, and lies on the Via Francigena del Sud between Rome and Brindisi.
We confirmed you can reach this one by train.
What to see in Sessa Aurunca
- Cattedrale dei Santi Pietro e Paolo. Romanesque cathedral consecrated in 1113 with twelve antique columns, a Cosmatesque ambon and paschal candelabrum, and a Byzantine apse.
- Teatro Romano di Sessa Aurunca. First-century Roman theater on the slope below the cathedral, one of the largest in southern Italy, with sculpted stage decoration recovered after 2000.
- Castello Ducale. Medieval fortress rebuilt by the Lombards, the Normans and the Aragonese, now housing the civic museum with Roman finds from the theater.
How to get to Sessa Aurunca
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Napoli is roughly 72 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through early June and September into October are the strongest months. The Roccamonfina slopes green and the trails through the chestnut woods open. The Cattedrale opens longer hours and the Roman theater is walkable in shirt sleeves. Festa Popolare della Tammorra falls in July.
Nola
Why visit Nola
Nola sits at 34 meters on the plain between Vesuvius and the Apennines, twenty kilometers east of Napoli. It was an Oscan and Samnite town before Rome, and the place where Augustus died in AD 14, in the same house his father had died in.
Giordano Bruno was born here in 1548, the Nolano who called his philosophy nolana before he was burned at the Campo de' Fiori in 1600. The town is best known today for the Festa dei Gigli, a UNESCO Intangible Heritage celebration on the Sunday before June 22 in which eight twenty-five-meter wooden obelisks, each weighing over a ton, are carried through the streets by teams of one hundred bearers.
The festival honors Paolino di Nola, the fifth-century bishop whose return from captivity in North Africa it commemorates. Outside the festival, Nola is a working town of warehouses and commerce.
We confirmed you can reach this one by train.
What to see in Nola
- Cattedrale di Nola. Cathedral of the Assunta and San Paolino, twentieth-century rebuilt after fire, with relics of the patron bishop who returned from Africa.
- Festa dei Gigli. UNESCO Intangible Heritage festival in June: eight 25-meter wooden obelisks carried through the streets by teams of one hundred bearers.
- Anfiteatro Romano di Nola. Roman amphitheater excavated on the southern edge of town, where Augustus was honored with funeral games in AD 14.
How to get to Nola
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Napoli is roughly 28 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June covers the green months and culminates in the Festa dei Gigli on the Sunday before June 22, the one weekend when Nola fills with hundreds of thousands of visitors. September and October are warm and quieter, with the wine and hazelnut harvests in nearby Irpinia bringing activity to the markets. July and August are hot and humid on the plain.
Benevento
Why visit Benevento
Benevento sits at 130 meters at the confluence of the Calore and Sabato rivers, fifty-five kilometers northeast of Naples, the historic capital of the Sannio. The Lombard Duchy of Benevento was founded in 571, well before the small circular church that survives from around 760, and the city centre still carries that double layer of Roman provincial capital and Lombard duchy seat.
Walking from the cathedral down Corso Garibaldi, past the cloister sculptures set against the medieval wall, ends at the triumphal arch, so the route itself moves from the Lombard and medieval town toward the point where the Roman road left for Brindisi. The countryside around the city is Aglianico del Taburno wine and the herbal liqueur distilled here since 1860.
What holds the city together is this sequence along one line of streets: two civic identities, Roman and Lombard, laid end to end and still walkable in that order.
We confirmed you can reach this one by train.
What to see in Benevento
- Arco di Traiano. The marble reliefs facing the road show Trajan's domestic policy, those facing the town his military campaigns, a pairing read as deliberate rather than decorative. The Via Traiana ran from this point to Brindisi.
- Chiesa di Santa Sofia. The circular plan is unusual for the period, and the interior keeps traces of the original Lombard fabric beneath later additions. It stands apart from the rectangular churches common elsewhere in the city.
- Teatro Romano. Roman theatre begun under Hadrian and completed under Caracalla, capacity for ten thousand spectators, still used for summer performances.
How to get to Benevento
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Salerno is roughly 84 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the city's dry months, with mild evenings along the Calore and the Roman amphitheatre's summer programme starting in June. July and August push the inland Sannio past thirty-five degrees, and the old town empties between three and six in the afternoon while the riverbanks become the local refuge. November through March is wet, foggy at dawn, with rain a constant in February.
Caserta
Why visit Caserta
Caserta sits at 68 meters on the Campanian plain, 25 kilometers north of Naples at the foot of the Tifatini hills. The city exists because Charles III of Bourbon decided in 1750 to build a palace that would rival Versailles and the Royal Palace of Madrid, far enough inland to be safe from naval bombardment.
Luigi Vanvitelli laid the first stone in 1752: five floors, 1,200 rooms, 1,742 windows, 34 staircases. The gardens stretch three kilometers from the back façade to a cascade fed by the Carolino Aqueduct, also Vanvitelli's design.
The complex was listed by UNESCO in 1997 together with the silk village of San Leucio, the utopian industrial colony Ferdinand IV built on a hill four kilometers away. Up the road, Casertavecchia, the medieval village abandoned when the Bourbons moved everyone down to the plain, keeps its 12th-century Romanesque cathedral at 401 meters.
The modern city below is a working provincial capital, not a tourist town.
We confirmed you can reach this one by train.
What to see in Caserta
- Reggia di Caserta. Bourbon royal palace begun in 1752 by Luigi Vanvitelli, five floors, 1,200 rooms, UNESCO-listed since 1997 with the park and the Carolino Aqueduct.
- Parco Reale e Giardino Inglese. Three-kilometer formal park ending in a cascade, with an English Garden added by Maria Carolina in 1786, the first of its kind in Italy.
- Casertavecchia. Medieval hilltop village at 401 meters, 10 km from the city, abandoned when the Bourbons relocated the population to the plain.
How to get to Caserta
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Napoli is roughly 38 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September through October are the comfortable months on the plain. The Reggia gardens are at their best in May, when the parterres bloom and the cascade runs full. July and August push into the high thirties; Vanvitelli's three-kilometer walk from palace to cascade becomes a heat exposure rather than a pleasure, though the shuttle bus runs.
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