Hill towns
Hill towns in Molise
10 towns
The ridge and hilltop borghi, sitting around 400 metres. Vineyards below, one road up, walkable once you are there. Good in almost any season.
Scapoli
Province: Isernia · 668 m
Italy's zampogna bagpipe capital: a 586-resident borgo in the Mainarde at 668m, with a centuries-old tradition of hand-building the zampogna and the Bandiera Arancione plus national park signals.
Bagnoli del Trigno
Province: Isernia · 661 m
The 'Pearl of Molise', a 637-resident borgo built into and around a massive limestone outcrop above the Trigno valley, with a medieval castle rebuilt on its summit.
Roccavivara
Province: Campobasso · 652 m
A 652-meter village above the Trigno river valley, home to the Romanesque Santuario della Madonna del Canneto with its 1223 ambone and 14th-century gothic Madonna del Sorriso.
Fornelli
Province: Isernia · 530 m
A walled medieval borgo at 530 meters with seven towers and the birthplace of Nancy Pelosi's mother, eight kilometers west of Isernia.
Civitacampomarano
Province: Campobasso · 520 m
The Molisan ghost-borgo of 302 residents that turned its abandoned centro storico into an open-air street-art village.
Isernia
Province: Isernia · 423 m
A provincial capital on a 423-meter rock spine, with a Paleolithic site dated 700,000 years and a thirteenth-century public fountain.
Guglionesi
Province: Campobasso · 369 m
A 369-meter hill town between the Biferno and Trigno valleys, founded by the Frentani in the fifth century BC and looking out toward the Adriatic.
Larino
Province: Campobasso · 341 m
A Frentani and Roman town of 341 meters in the lower Biferno valley, where a Roman arena and a Gothic cathedral stand a short walk apart.
Guardialfiera
Province: Campobasso · 285 m
A hilltop village at 285 meters above the largest artificial lake in Molise.
Venafro
Province: Isernia · 222 m
A 222-meter town near the Lazio border where an emperor founded a colony and Pliny called the local oil the best in the Empire.
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From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Campi Salentina
Province: Lecce
A Salento plain town fifteen kilometers north of Lecce, rebuilt after the Saracen raids of 926 and later raised to a marquisate.
Loreto Aprutino
Province: Pescara
A hilltop town at 290 meters in the Aprutino olive country, with a fourteenth-century Judgment fresco and a Castelli majolica collection.
Ascea
Province: Salerno
Two villages, a hilltown at 230 meters and a Cilento marina, with Parmenides and Zeno's Eleatic school in the ruins of Greek Velia below.
Vico del Gargano
Province: Foggia
A Gargano hill town at 445 meters where a Norman castle, a kiss alley, and DOP citrus terraces step down toward the Adriatic.
Mantova
Province: Mantova
A Gonzaga capital at 19 meters, encircled on three sides by lakes the Mincio formed in the twelfth century, UNESCO-listed together with Sabbioneta since 2008.