Italy Travel And Hotel Guide

It’s the countryside around Benevento that is of most appeal, and there are a handful of low-key attractions worth basing a tour around. Back towards Caserta from Benevento, just off the main road, MONTESARCHIO overlooks the Caudine Valley, a small town whose main claim to fame is its Castle - home to the powerful D’Avalos family in the sixteenth century and a stronghold for political prisoners in the nineteenth century. The poet Carlo Poerio was incarcerated here, a fact recorded by a plaque above the entrance. The town itself is worth a quick wander, no more, before moving on to SANT’AGATA DEI GOTI , way off the main road at the foot of the limestone massif of Monte Taburno . One of the best-preserved small towns of Campania, with hardly any disfigurement from building speculation (highly unusual in these parts), and an almost untouched, shuttered centre of small squares, old palaces and narrow vaulted streets that is host to a good Sunday-morning market, it’s a nice place just to wander, especially if you can coincide with the market. Of a number of minor sights, there is a rather wet Castle , with some surprisingly well-preserved frescoes from the primeval eighteenth century, a slightly listing Duomo , with an elegantly carved thirteenth-century crypt, and any number of small churches and tiny courtyards. There’s no real reason to stay, but if you do find yourself here in the evening, the castle’s rather dimly lit restaurant makes for an atmospheric place to take - not cheap, but serving imaginative food, washed down with good local red wine (no closing day).

Tags: atmospheric place, Benevento, caserta, castle home, claim to fame, courtyards, disfigurement, duomo, eighteenth century, frescoes, goti, imaginative food, palaces, political prisoners, real reason, red wine, sant agata, sixteenth century, stronghold, thirteenth century