The Matese

The Matese is a limestone massif that Molise shares with Campania. Monte Miletto, 2,050 metres, is the highest summit in the region; below it, at one thousand and ten metres, lies Lake Matese, the highest karst lake in Italy, which empties and fills from year to year because the water drains away through fissures in the rock.

It is a landscape of high pasture, sinkholes and swallow holes, with beech woods lower down. You walk on marked paths starting from the lake or from Campitello; the climb to Miletto takes half a day and needs nothing but legs and water, but there is no shade up there and the weather turns quickly.

Winter

Campitello Matese is the only ski resort in Molise: modest lifts, good altitude, and nearly always real snow. A little to the north, at Capracotta, more than two metres of snow fell in just over a day in March 2015, a European record for a single snowfall. Capracotta also has a botanical garden of Apennine flora, open in summer.

The Molise side is reached from Bojano and San Massimo, the Campania side from Piedimonte Matese: they are two different roads and you do not cross quickly from one to the other. High up the phone signal is missing in many places, and in winter the roads above a thousand metres call for winter tyres or chains on board.

There are no campsites up here: you climb from the coast in an hour and a half, or from Campobasso in three quarters of an hour. Anyone wanting to stay will find refuges and small hotels at Bojano, San Massimo and Campitello.