Around 480 AD, Saint Benedict was born here — father of Western monasticism and patron of Europe: his rule, "ora et labora", set out from this basin beneath the Sibillini mountains. The 2016 earthquake wounded Norcia badly, basilica included; reconstruction advances, and visiting today is also an act of support for a community that never gave up.
The other vocation lives in the common noun the town gave the Italian language: norcineria, the butcher's craft. Cured meats, IGP prosciutto and prized black truffle — celebrated in late February at Nero Norcia — remain the reason gourmets climb up here. Castelluccio and its flowering plateau are half an hour away.
Near Norcia
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
