Civitacampomarano, the village that speaks through its walls

There are villages that resist by staying just as they are, and villages that have chosen to reinvent themselves. Civitacampomarano, perched among the clay badlands of inland Molise, belongs to the second kind. A few hundred people live here, and the historic centre, made of narrow alleys and stone houses, at times seems suspended in silence. And yet it is precisely this emptying out that has produced something unexpected: the walls of the abandoned homes have become canvases for a street art festival that each year draws artists from various parts of the world.

Street art

Walking through the town means coming across murals that converse with the ancient stone, with the walled-up windows, with the washing hung out by the few remaining families. It is not an open-air museum designed for tourists, but a community experiment that tries to keep the memory of the place alive. Above the village rises the Angevin castle, a fortress that has crossed the centuries and looks down from on high over the valley and the badlands, those eroded ridges that give the landscape an almost lunar appearance.

Village life

Civitacampomarano is also linked to the figure of Gabriele Pepe, a nineteenth-century patriot born here, but the real charm of the place lies in its suspended everyday life: a square where people greet one another by name, a bar that closes early, the wind running between the empty houses. It is a Molise that does not sell itself, and perhaps for this reason it has not yet been consumed.

When to visit

To visit it, it is best to avoid the days of the spring festival, when the only peak in visitors arrives. The rest of the year the village is practically yours. Come by car, take your time, talk with whoever you meet: it is a slow journey, into a corner of Italy that asks only to be listened to.

Related guides: Hidden medieval villages in Italy: jewels far from the crowds · Where to go at Easter without the crowds: villages and weekends in Italy's lesser-known corners · The 25 April and 1 May long weekend: 13 villages to visit before the high season.

Getting there

Civitacampomarano lies in the Molise interior, between Campobasso and the Adriatic coast: by car it is reached along the Fondovalle del Biferno and continuing on the provincial roads toward Lucito. The reference railway stations are those of Campobasso and Termoli, from which you continue by bus or rental car. Molise has no airports of its own: the most convenient hubs are those of Naples and Pescara, from which it is best to travel by car.

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