Borghi Autentici
Borghi Autentici in Molise
6 towns
Molise holds 6 Borghi Autentici sites inside our catalogue. They cluster in the Isernia and Campobasso provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Capracotta, Castel del Giudice, and Macchiagodena. 3 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
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.
Castel del Giudice
Province: Isernia · 800 m
Italy's most-cited Apennine reinvention case study — a 308-resident Alto Molise borgo at 800m that rebuilt its abandoned schoolhouse as a 30-room albergo diffuso, recovered 5,000 ancient apple trees into a recognised organic-orchard cooperative, and became the template Comuni Virtuosi cite when explaining how depopulated villages can self-sustain.
Macchiagodena
Province: Isernia · 868 m
Molise's white truffle capital — a 1,648-resident hilltop borgo at 868m in the Apennine middle Molise, with the Castello dei Pignatelli on the summit, intact medieval streets, and 30+ active truffle hunters working the surrounding oak forests with the local Molise white truffle harvest October-December.
Pizzone
Province: Isernia · 724 m
A 313-person Mainarde village at 724 meters in the Molise sector of the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park, above the Volturno springs.
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.
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.
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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.