Orto della Regina (mura megalitiche)
Roccamonfina (CE)
Hidden gemHistory & archaeology
The story
In the silence of a centuries-old chestnut wood appears a ring of cyclopean boulders 180 metres long, raised by the Aurunci or the Samnites: legend says princess Fina hid here, and the volcano still bears her name.
Access
FREE, CAI trails (ascent ~450 m, medium-hard)
More gems in Roccamonfina
- Villages
Roccamonfina
Roccamonfina (CE)
Nestled in the crater of an extinct volcano, Roccamonfina smells of chestnut groves and guards the Ciampate del Diavolo, ancient human footprints pressed into the volcanic rock.
Sacred artSantuario della Madonna dei Lattani
Roccamonfina (CE)
Among ancient chestnut groves, on the flank of an extinct volcano, the Franciscan convent founded by Saint Bernardino of Siena gathers the silence at eight hundred and fifty metres above Campania.
- Volcanoes
Vulcano di Roccamonfina
Roccamonfina (CE)
An extinct volcano clothed in chestnut groves, where the crater has become a plateau and every trail smells of dark earth and ancient woods.
- Sacred art
Eremo di Monte Atano
Roccamonfina (CE)
On a volcanic cone covered in chestnut trees stand the walls of a hermitage and a mute little chapel: a place of prayer that the wood is slowly taking back.
More gems: History & archaeology
History & archaeologyStatua del Nilo ("Corpo di Napoli")
Largo Corpo di Napoli
A river god reclining for centuries in a quiet square, whom Neapolitans call the Corpo di Napoli: he leans his bearded head among putti and a sphinx.
History & archaeologyCappella Pontano
Decumani
A small Renaissance temple on the decumanus, which the humanist Pontano had raised for his lost wife, still lined inside with Latin inscriptions dictated by his grief.
- History & archaeology
Sedile di Nilo
Decumani
On the corner of a small Spaccanapoli square survives the seat of the old Nilo quarter, where the nobles once gathered before the sedili of Naples vanished.
History & archaeologyPort'Alba
Napoli
A seventeenth-century arch cut into the walls leads to the booksellers' street, where stalls of second-hand volumes pile up among yellowed pages and the shade of the old city.
History & archaeologyPorta Capuana
zona Garibaldi
Between two cylindrical towers an arch of white marble opens like a Renaissance triumph, the old city gate facing the road to Capua.
- History & archaeology
MANN — Museo Archeologico Nazionale
P.za Museo
One of the world's great archaeological museums: here the Toro Farnese, the mosaics of Pompeii and the Gabinetto Segreto tell the whole ancient Mediterranean in a single visit.