Hill towns
Hill towns in Molise
10 towns
The ridge and hilltop borghi, sitting around 400 meters. Vineyards below, one road up, walkable once you are there. Good in almost any season.
The towns
Scapoli
Province: Isernia · 668 m
Italy's zampogna bagpipe capital: a 576-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 610-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 298 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 about 600,000 years old and a public fountain built from Roman stones.
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.
From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns
Ventotene
Province: Latina
The smaller of the inhabited Pontine Islands, a flat three-kilometer tuff platform southeast of Ponza.
Monte Argentario
Province: Grosseto
A 635-meter peninsula tied to the mainland by three sand spits, ringed by Spanish forts and marked by Caravaggio's death in 1610.
Dogliani
Province: Cuneo
A two-tier Langhe town at 295 meters, the Borgo by the Rea stream and the Castello on the hill, capital of Dolcetto di Dogliani DOCG.
Ronco Canavese
Province: Torino
A 383-inhabitant Francoprovenzale village at 956 meters on the Piemonte side of the Gran Paradiso National Park.
Pieve Tesino
Province: Trento
A plateau village in eastern Trentino, birthplace of Alcide De Gasperi, shaped by centuries of families who left to trade prints across Europe.