Bandiera Arancione
Bandiera Arancione in Molise
5 towns
Molise carries 5 of the Bandiera Arancione towns we cover. They cluster in the Isernia and Campobasso provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Roccamandolfi, Agnone, and Ferrazzano. 2 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
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 in the Alto Molise, town of the Marinelli pontifical bell foundry and the Ndocciata fire procession on Christmas Eve.
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.
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.
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 (Italian bagpipe), an annual International Bagpipe Festival in July drawing players from Galicia, Scotland, Bulgaria, and 15+ other countries, and the Bandiera Arancione + Abruzzo, Lazio e Molise national park signals.
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From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Putignano
Province: Bari
Europe's longest-running carnival — Putignano Carnevale has run continuously since 1394, with 631 years of cartapesta papier-mâché floats, a 26,000-resident Murgia town on the Bari–Lecce plateau, and the Grotta del Trullo karst cave inside the centro.
Pistoia
Province: Pistoia
Italy's nursery capital and the medieval Tuscan rival that gave its name to the pistol — a quietly extraordinary centro storico of zebra-striped Romanesque churches, Andrea della Robbia's polychrome frieze on the Ospedale del Ceppo, and Italy's Capital of Culture 2017, all 30 minutes from Florence by train.
Tropea
Province: Vibo Valentia
Cliff town on a tufa headland over the Tyrrhenian Coast of the Gods, with a Norman monastery on a sea rock.
Caldes
Province: Trento
A scattered Val di Sole commune on the Noce, six hamlets gathered around a thirteenth-century tower-house castle that once belonged to the Thun family.
Cantiano
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
A border borgo at 374 meters under Monte Catria on the old Via Flaminia, known for the Good Friday Turba and the sour-cherry visciola harvest.