Mountain towns
Mountain towns in Molise
14 towns
Towns inside a named range: the Alps, the Dolomites, the Apennines, the Pollino, the Aspromonte. Around 800 metres and up, where the season decides the trip.
Capracotta
Province: Isernia · 1,421 m
At 1,421 meters the second-highest commune in central Italy, holder of the world record for snowfall in 24 hours: 2.56 meters on 5 March 2015.
Pescopennataro
Province: Isernia · 1,190 m
An Alto Molise stone village at 1,190 meters, the paese della pietra e degli abeti, above a rare high-altitude white-fir forest.
Frosolone
Province: Isernia · 894 m
A 900-meter blade-making town in the Matese foothills, called Italy's Toledo for the knives and scissors forged here since the 1800s.
Ferrazzano
Province: Campobasso · 872 m
A hilltop borgo at 872 meters above Campobasso, called the Sentinel of Molise, where Robert De Niro's great-grandparents lived before sailing in 1887.
Macchiagodena
Province: Isernia · 868 m
Molise's white truffle capital: a 1,648-resident hilltop borgo at 868m in the Apennine middle Molise, with intact medieval streets and 30+ active truffle hunters working the surrounding oak forests, the Molise white truffle harvest running October-December.
Roccamandolfi
Province: Isernia · 850 m
At 850 meters at the foot of Monte Miletto, a Matese village of brigand legends, Lombard ruins, and a Tibetan bridge over the Callora canyon.
Agnone
Province: Isernia · 840 m
At 840 meters, town of the pontifical bell foundry and the fire procession that lights its streets every Christmas Eve.
Castel del Giudice
Province: Isernia · 800 m
An Alto Molise borgo of 308 residents at 800m that rebuilt an abandoned schoolhouse as a diffuse hotel and recovered 5,000 ancient apple trees into an organic-orchard cooperative.
Oratino
Province: Campobasso · 780 m
A stonemason borgo at 780 meters above the Biferno, with a square tower on a limestone spur that an earthquake in 1456 left standing alone.
Castel San Vincenzo
Province: Isernia · 749 m
A 749-meter village near the Volturno source, sharing ground with one of medieval Europe's most powerful abbeys and a ninth-century frescoed crypt.
Pizzone
Province: Isernia · 724 m
A 313-person Mainarde village at 724 meters, above the Volturno springs.
Campobasso
Province: Campobasso · 701 m
Molise's regional capital and the smallest in Italy, 47,000 residents at 701m on a wooded Apennine ridge, with a centro storico that climbs the hillside in stone-paved switchbacks.
Sepino
Province: Campobasso · 698 m
A hilltop borgo at 698 meters at the foot of the Matese, two kilometers above the Roman Saepinum, the open-air city the sheep tracks built.
Ripalimosani
Province: Campobasso · 640 m
A sandstone-ridge village at 640 meters above the Biferno valley, the historic land of the funai rope makers and a Tintilia wine commune.
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From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Cicala
Province: Catanzaro
A village of 887 people at 829 meters, founded in 1616 by farmers asking for land.
Fossombrone
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
An inland Marchigiano town on the Metauro river, layered over a Roman colony with a Renaissance ducal court rising above it.
Bagnoli del Trigno
Province: Isernia
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.
Varenna
Province: Lecco
A fishing village founded in 769 on the Lecco arm of Lake Como, with a steep grid of streets falling into the water.
Rocca di Botte
Province: L'Aquila
At 750 meters on the Carseolani slopes between Abruzzo and Lazio, the birthplace of an eleventh-century hermit and a fief of the Colonna.