Montemiletto

Montemiletto stands exactly on the ridge that divides the valley of the Calore from that of the Sabato, among the hills of Irpinia, and its Latin name says it all: Mons Militum, the mount of the soldiers. The historic centre grew entirely around the castle of the Leonessa, a fief of the Della Leonessa and then of the De Tocco until 1806; you enter it under the porta della terra, an arch set against the castle, and come out in the quarter that people here still call 'ngoppa 'a chiazza. The medieval borgo frays into stone alleys that the dialect calls ruve, and the mother church of Santa Maria Maggiore has its bell tower standing apart from the building.

In the former Dominican convent, which today houses the town hall, there survive a portico of twenty stone columns and a well dug in 1723. The rest is told by the roads. The via Nazionale delle Puglie has always passed through here, and now the Naples to Canosa motorway does too, entering a tunnel a kilometre long right beneath the village: people walk above and cars run below. The old station on the Avellino to Rocchetta Sant'Antonio line, by contrast, opens only for tourist trains. From Torrecella, which is a natural terrace, you can see the ranges of the Sannio as well.