Padula

Padula sits on two hills above the Vallo di Diano, the long valley between the Cilento and the Lucanian Apennines. The monastery was founded on 27 April 1306 by Tommaso di Sanseverino, and UNESCO listed it in 1998 as part of the Cilento and Vallo di Diano serial site. The medieval centro climbs the hill above it, stone houses and narrow lanes rising to the church of San Michele Arcangelo at the summit, from where the valley opens out below.

It was in these streets that the 1857 volunteers were captured and killed, an event the town still marks with its monument. The commune is also Città del Pane, for the round wheat loaves baked in local wood ovens. Padula reads as a town built around a single enormous fact below it and a smaller, older settlement above, the two connected by a hillside that has seen both monastic ambition and a violent end to a political expedition.

From Naples / Salerno (NAP), about 2 hours by car.

Lamezia / Reggio (SUF) is about 2h 52m away.

By car from the centre of Salerno 1h 14m, Naples 2 hours or Bari 3 hours.

There is a railway station in the comune, so you can arrive without a car.

Coming from Naples?

Coming by train into Salerno? Padula is about 1h 17m away by road.

Every town within reach of Naples / Salerno airport.