Region
Molise
Molise's 27 towns in our catalogue split across the Isernia and Campobasso provinces; 9 carry the Città dell'Olio designation.
27 towns · highest: Capracotta 1,421m · smallest: Pescopennataro 239 people
27 of 27 towns
27 of 27 towns
Agnone
Province: Isernia
At 840 meters, town of the pontifical bell foundry and the fire procession that lights its streets every Christmas Eve.
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.
Campobasso
Province: Campobasso
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.
Capracotta
Province: Isernia
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.
Castel del Giudice
Province: Isernia
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.
Castel San Vincenzo
Province: Isernia
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.
Civitacampomarano
Province: Campobasso
The Molisan ghost-borgo of 302 residents that turned its abandoned centro storico into an open-air street-art village.
Ferrazzano
Province: Campobasso
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.
Fornelli
Province: Isernia
A walled medieval borgo at 530 meters with seven towers and the birthplace of Nancy Pelosi's mother, eight kilometers west of Isernia.
Frosolone
Province: Isernia
A 900-meter blade-making town in the Matese foothills, called Italy's Toledo for the knives and scissors forged here since the 1800s.
Guardialfiera
Province: Campobasso
A hilltop village at 285 meters above the largest artificial lake in Molise.
Guglionesi
Province: Campobasso
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.
Isernia
Province: Isernia
A provincial capital on a 423-meter rock spine, with a Paleolithic site dated 700,000 years and a thirteenth-century public fountain.
Larino
Province: Campobasso
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.
Macchiagodena
Province: Isernia
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.
Montenero di Bisaccia
Province: Campobasso
A tufa hill town at 273 meters above the northernmost stretch of Molise coast, home base of former magistrate Antonio Di Pietro and his vineyards.
Oratino
Province: Campobasso
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.
Pescopennataro
Province: Isernia
An Alto Molise stone village at 1,190 meters, the paese della pietra e degli abeti, above a rare high-altitude white-fir forest.
Petacciato
Province: Campobasso
A hilltop village at 225 meters on the Adriatic, with a Romanesque church in tuff and sandstone and a long sand beach below.
Pizzone
Province: Isernia
A 313-person Mainarde village at 724 meters, above the Volturno springs.
Ripalimosani
Province: Campobasso
A sandstone-ridge village at 640 meters above the Biferno valley, the historic land of the funai rope makers and a Tintilia wine commune.
Roccamandolfi
Province: Isernia
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.
Roccavivara
Province: Campobasso
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.
Scapoli
Province: Isernia
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.
Sepino
Province: Campobasso
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.
Termoli
Province: Campobasso
Molise's only port, a walled promontory of fishermen's houses on the Adriatic, with the ferry pier for the Tremiti islands.
Venafro
Province: Isernia
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 to discover
Bernalda
Province: Matera
A 127-meter hill town between the Bradano and Basento, Francis Ford Coppola's ancestral home, holding the Magna Graecia columns of the Tavole Palatine.
Pietracamela
Province: Teramo
A village of 218 people clinging at 1,005 meters under the north wall of Corno Piccolo, birthplace of Italian Apennine climbing in 1925.
Dozza
Province: Bologna
A 190-meter painted borgo above the Sellustra valley, where contemporary artists have repainted the house walls every two years since 1960.
Gangi
Province: Palermo
A Madonie hill town stacked in concentric rings at 1,011 meters, RAI's Borgo dei Borghi 2014 and the launching pad for the one-euro-house programme.
Gravina in Puglia
Province: Bari
Puglia's deepest gravina: a Bari-province town of 42,700 built on the lip of a 100m-deep limestone canyon, its cliffs threaded with rupestrian cave churches.