On foot in the Matese: the Hermitage of Sant'Egidio and the drovers' roads of Bojano
Above Bojano, at a thousand metres in the Matese, the Hermitage of Sant'Egidio and the transhumance drovers' roads tell of a slow, silent Molise.
Almost desertedDestination calendar
Month by month, the least crowded destinations to visit. Choose when you travel and we'll tell you where to go.
October — top 12 of 1132 destinations
In Tuscania, the frescoed Judgement of Santa Maria Maggiore
In Tuscania, off the beaten track, a medieval church preserves a cycle of fourteenth-century frescoes that almost no one comes to see.
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Staffarda Abbey: 12th-Century Romanesque Amid Rice Fields
A 12th-century Cistercian abbey set amid the Piedmont rice fields, Staffarda is one of Italy's best-preserved monastic complexes — and rarely visited.
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Acciaroli: Hemingway's Port Full of Centenarians
A small Cilento port where Hemingway wrote, where centenarians outnumber tourists, and the sea still belongs to fishermen. Italy's oldest coast.
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Instead of Santorini: Folegandros, the Secret Cycladic Island Suspended Above the Sea
A Greek island with no airport, no resort hotels and no crowds. Chora is a medieval borgo perched on a clifftop that takes your breath away.
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Alicudi: the island without roads where the world stands still
No cars, no scooters, no tarmac: on Alicudi you get around on foot or by mule. It is the most isolated of the Aeolian Islands, and perhaps the most genuine.
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An alternative to Neuschwanstein: 13 fairy-tale castles in Italy and Europe
Looking for an alternative to Neuschwanstein? Here are 13 fairy-tale castles and fortresses in Italy and Europe, without the queues of 6,000 visitors a day.
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Amendolea: The Ghost Castle and the Lost Villages of Aspromonte
On Aspromonte's wildest slopes, Amendolea is an abandoned borgo ruled by a ruined Norman castle — a journey to Calabria's edge where nature reclaims what was once human.
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The Ring of the Greeks of Calabria in the Grecanic Area
On the Ionian slopes of the Aspromonte, at the very tip of Calabria, the Grecanic Area still endures: mountain villages where the Greek of Calabria is still spoken. A loop between Bova and Galliciano winds through half-abandoned villages overlooking a remote Ionian Sea, worlds away from the tourist circuits.
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The Monte Miletto Loop in the Matese
On the Matese massif, straddling Molise and Campania, Monte Miletto looms over karst lakes, high pastures and woods where roe deer have been thriving again since their reintroduction in 2008. A borderland mountain, rich in nature and well off every tourist trail.
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The Pratomagno loop: from the Casentino to the ridge of the cross
Between the Casentino and the Valdarno around Arezzo, the Pratomagno is a long grassy ridge little frequented by tourists: high-altitude meadows, beech woods and Romanesque parish churches offer 360-degree panoramas far from Tuscany's crowded destinations.
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The Petralie Loop and the Villages of the Madonie
In the mountainous heart of Sicily, between Petralia Soprana, Geraci Siculo and Gangi, a slow circuit through award-winning villages far from the coastal routes, set in an inland massif that most tourists drive straight past.
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