On the mountain above Cassino, Saint Benedict founded in 529 the mother abbey of Western monasticism: Montecassino, four times destroyed and four times risen — most recently after the 1944 bombing — remains a beacon of faith and culture, with its thousand-year library and the saint's tomb. The battle that bears its name was among the war's bloodiest: the Polish, German and Commonwealth cemeteries keep its price.
The "martyr city", entirely rebuilt, now lives on its university and industry. At the hill's foot, the Roman theatre and Varro's villa recall ancient Casinum.
Near Cassino
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
