Cantalice (RI)

Cantalice is a municipality of a little over 2,400 residents in the province of Rieti, perched on the southwestern slopes of the Reatini Mountains at an elevation that the historic center takes beyond 580 meters and that at the high points of the territory exceeds 600. From Rome it is about 93 kilometers: you take the Salaria, SS4, toward Rieti, and after Rieti you climb toward Vazia and from there to the town. Those arriving from the north exit the A1 at Orte and continue on the SS675 and then on the Salaria. By public transport you reach Rieti by train or bus and continue with the Cotral line that links the Rieti railway station to Cantalice Castello: schedules, which change between the school period and summer, should be checked on the carrier's official website. The village has no entrance ticket, the churches open at the times of services, and the visit to the historic center is free and always possible. The town hall is in Cantalice Inferiore. For updates on festivals, sagre and closures it's best to consult the official website of the Municipality of Cantalice. The patron saint is Felix of Cantalice and is celebrated on May 18. The Laghi Lungo e Ripasottile Nature Reserve, which includes part of the municipal territory, is managed by the Lazio Region with offices in Rieti at Via Cintia 87, phone 0746 200999.

Frequently asked questions about Cantalice (RI)

How much does it cost to visit Cantalice?

Nothing: Cantalice is an inhabited town, not a paid site, and the staircase, the alleys, the viewpoints and the open churches can be visited for free. The only expenses are transport, parking where applicable and dining.

How much time do you need to visit Cantalice?

For the village of Cantalice alone, climb and descent included, with stops at the viewpoints, allow about two hours. The time grows if you add a stop at the Sanctuary or a walk in the nearby lakes reserve.

How many steps does the Cantalice staircase have?

Local sources count about 350 stone steps between the top of Cantalice Superiore and the square of the lower part of the town. It's not a monumental staircase designed by an architect, but the real historic street of the village, carved into the slope.

Is Cantalice wheelchair accessible?

No, Cantalice Superiore is not accessible to those who move in a wheelchair or to those with significant difficulty walking, because the 350 steps of irregular stone allow no compromises. The lower part of the town, on the other hand, is flat.

Is Cantalice suitable for a trip with children?

Yes, the village of Cantalice works well with children from six years up, who tackle the staircase like a game and find in the alleys, the arches and the fountains a natural obstacle course. With the youngest, however, a stroller is unusable in Cantalice Superiore.

When is it best to go to Cantalice?

The best season for Cantalice is the second half of May and the whole month of September: in May the town is green and the patron saint's feast animates the staircase, in September the light on the lakes is the best of the year. July, with the heat of the central hours, is the month to avoid for a visit on foot.

Who was Saint Felix of Cantalice?

Saint Felix of Cantalice, born Felice Porri on May 18, 1515, is the first Capuchin in history to be canonized, and is the figure to whom the town is indissolubly tied: he was a shepherd and farm laborer until the age of 28 before joining the Capuchins in the autumn of 1543.

What do you eat in Cantalice?

The signature dish of Cantalice is the strengozze cantaliciane, a handmade pasta of water and flour, without egg, dressed with tomato, garlic and persa, an aromatic plant similar to marjoram. The recipe has been listed since 2006 in the regional list of traditional agri-food products.

If you're building an itinerary in the Holy Valley of Rieti, the natural logistical base is Rieti, about 10 kilometers away, and the full list of destinations you can combine you'll find among the tourist attractions of Lazio. Those traveling in English find the framing of the region in the ItalyPlanner guide to Lazio.

Where Cantalice (RI) is and how you really get there

Geography explains almost everything about this village. Cantalice sits on a spur that drops from the Terminillo massif toward the Rieti Plain, and that spur is steep: the houses clung on wherever they could, one above the other, leaving a staircase instead of a road as the vertical link. From below, from the plain, the village shows a compact front of stone that looks like a defensive curtain wall. From the village looking down, you see three bodies of water, Lake Lungo, Lake Ripasottile and the little Lake Ventina, with the mountain behind them. It's a position chosen for control, not for comfort.

Driving to Cantalice (RI)

From Rome the most direct route is the Salaria to Rieti, then the provincial road that climbs from Vazia to the village. The final stretch is a climb with tight switchbacks. Nothing demanding, but with a camper or a long vehicle you should decide beforehand where to leave it, because in Cantalice Superiore the alleys are impassable to any car. The distance from Rieti is short, around 10 kilometers, and the real travel time always runs longer than your GPS says, because nobody speeds on the provincial road.

Getting to Cantalice (RI) by public transit

There is a connection, the Cotral line between the Rieti train station and Cantalice, ending in the upper part of the village. The runs are tuned to school and work commuting: on weekends and in August they thin out a lot. If you arrive without a car, work out the return trip before you leave, because being stuck in Cantalice at eight in the evening without your own vehicle means calling a taxi from Rieti.

Parking in Cantalice (RI)

The useful spaces are in the lower part and in the wide spots along the road that climbs. The rule is simple: leave the vehicle at the first free spot you meet on the way up and continue on foot. There's no advantage in hunting for a space higher up, because you'll face the staircase anyway, and tackling it going down after driving up takes half the point out of the visit.

Cantalice (RI) reads on two levels

The village is split into two parts that have different functions and should be visited in different ways. Cantalice Inferiore is the modern part, grown along the roads open to cars, where you find the services, the town hall, the shops and the spaces for the summer festivals. Cantalice Superiore is the medieval core: stone, steps, arches, fountains, dated portals, and no concession to the automobile. Anyone who thinks they've seen the village because they drove through the lower part hasn't seen anything.

The division is not a recent matter of place names. It reflects the way the settlement formed: first the castle up high, with its tower and its cistern, then the village that huddled at its feet, then the gradual descent toward the plain when defense stopped being the dominant criterion. Walking from top to bottom along the staircase means crossing that chronology in about 20 minutes.

The staircase of Cantalice (RI), the backbone of the village

The staircase that cuts through Cantalice Superiore from top to bottom is what makes this village different from the others around Rieti. Local sources count around 350 stone steps between the summit and the square in the lower part. It isn't a monumental stair designed by an architect. It's the village's street, carved into the slope, and along the way there are constant openings onto stone houses, portals, small fountains, votive shrines and little churches that the distracted visitor mistakes for homes.

The character of the climb is made of sharp contrasts. You walk in a passage barely over a meter wide, with the walls taking away the sky, and then suddenly a gap, an old door, a low parapet opens the view over the whole Rieti Plain and the lakes. This alternation of compression and opening is the real experience of Cantalice, and it's also the reason to walk it uphill at least once: going down, the view still hits you, but you lose the effect of surprise.

Here's a practical note worth more than a lot of description: the steps are uneven, often polished by use, and in the rain they get slippery. Wear shoes with rubber soles, not sandals. And if you have knee problems, climb slowly and plan for stops, because benches are scarce along the route.

The Torrione del Cassero, what remains of the castle of Cantalice (RI)

At the top of the village stands the Torrione del Cassero, the defensive structure that dominated the settlement. Local sources place its origin around the 11th century. Its shape tells its own story: partly cylindrical, partly rectangular, a sign of later alterations that adapted the defense to different needs over the centuries. Inside there was a cistern, a decisive feature for a hilltop garrison that in a siege could not count on springs.

From the spot where the tower stands you grasp the military logic of the site: you control the access to the mountain on one side and the outlet onto the plain on the other. Whoever held the Cassero held the pass. When in the Middle Ages the frontier between different powers ran right through here, that control was worth far more than the village's modest population.

On this point my judgment is firm: the Torrione is the reason it's worth finishing the climb even when your legs say stop. The panorama from the top of the village is not a consolation prize, it is the very sense of the urban structure you have just crossed.

The churches of Cantalice (RI), one by one

The density of places of worship in such a small village strikes anyone who arrives. It is explained by the story of the saint, by the original fragmentation into several strongholds, each with its own church, and by the devotion that has accompanied Cantalice for centuries as the birthplace of the first Capuchin saint.

The church of San Felice, the summit of Cantalice (RI)

The building that looms over the old village is the church dedicated to San Felice da Cantalice, built on the area where, according to local tradition, the saint's house stood. Its construction belongs to the 18th century, after the canonization of 1712, in a phase when the village wanted to give its saint a building worthy of the devotion he had gathered. The layout is Baroque, in the shape of a Latin cross, and the dome is decorated with depictions of the miracles attributed to Felice. Inside, an 18th-century pipe organ is preserved.

What I recommend looking at closely is the cycle in the dome. It isn't painting of the very first rank and nobody passes it off as such, but it's an excellent document of how a rural community built the public image of its saint: the episodes chosen, the way of depicting them, the visual hierarchy between the miracle and its setting. Anyone who wants to understand the popular religiosity of Baroque Rieti learns more here than in many churches with grander names. The same dedication, it must be said, is found in Rome in the church of San Felice da Cantalice in the Prenestino Centocelle district, a 20th-century parish also entrusted to the Capuchins: two buildings very far apart in era and language, linked by the same begging friar.

The church of Santa Maria and the portal of 1548

About halfway up the staircase the path widens into a small square. Here stands the church of Santa Maria, built to seal the union of the old strongholds that gave shape to the Castle of Cantalice. It's a fact that needs reading properly: the church is not just a place of worship, it is the founding act of a community that had previously been divided into three separate cores.

The thing to look at is the portal, dated 1548, plain in workmanship and well preserved. On the left of the building opens an old portico, one of those threshold spaces that in Apennine villages served for everything: shelter, market, assembly, waiting before the service. The little square is also one of the best spots for a break halfway up, with the view opening onto the lakes.

The Madonna della Pace, memory of a war won

Among the churches of Cantalice there is one that is a political document even before a religious one: the church of the Madonna della Pace, erected to celebrate the peace with Rieti after the 16th-century conflicts. Local sources date it to 1571, with some texts giving the following year. In the absence of unambiguous archival confirmation, it's best to keep the cautious form and place it in the early 1570s. It has coffered ceilings and frescoes.

The dedication to Peace, in a village that had just repelled an assault from Rieti, is not generic devotion. It is the formalization of an agreement. In 16th-century central Italy, peace between neighboring communities was sealed this way too, with a building that made public and permanent what a notary had put in writing.

The Madonna della Misericordia

The village's devotional heritage also includes the church of the Madonna della Misericordia, one of those minor buildings that hurried visitors skip and that in fact complete the picture of Cantalice's religious life. As with the village's other places of worship, opening depends on the services and on the availability of whoever keeps the keys. If you want to see them all open, aim for Sunday morning or the days of the patron saint's festival.

The Sanctuary of San Felice all'Acqua

About two kilometers from the old village stands the Sanctuary of San Felice all'Acqua, the place that tradition names as the scene of the saint's most famous miracle: water made to gush on a summer day by striking the ground with a staff. It's an episode that belongs to the hagiographic tradition and should be told for what it is, not as a documented fact, but the sanctuary that grew from it is real and remains a pilgrimage destination.

You can get there by car or on foot, and the second option is far better: the path crosses the countryside below the village and gives back that relationship between village, water and cultivated fields that was Cantalice's economic base for centuries. Anyone walking the Cammino di Francesco passes through these parts anyway.

Palazzo Ramacogi and the civil architecture of Cantalice (RI)

Not all of Cantalice's architecture is religious or defensive. Palazzo Ramacogi is the most interesting civil building in the village. Above the entrance door you can make out the coat of arms of the Ramacogi family, a kind of shield with a rose in the upper part. On the outer facade opens a 16th-century loggia with five arches.

That loggia deserves a couple more words. In a village where space is won with difficulty on the slope and where everyday building is made of closed volumes and small openings, a loggia with five arches is a statement: it means a family had the means and the social standing to afford to waste built frontage in favor of display. It's a sign that in the 16th century Cantalice had a local ruling class with ambitions of its own, and was not merely a frontier garrison.

The rest of the building fabric should be looked at as a whole. Houses in local stone, pitched roofs, relieving arches between one side of the alleys and the other, outside stairs, public fountains, devotional icons set into the walls: it's an almost complete catalog of pre-industrial Apennine building, which survived because the staircase prevented the transformations that the automobile imposed elsewhere.

Who San Felice da Cantalice was, the man who gave the village its name

The village and the saint are inseparable, and it's worth knowing the biography before you climb, because every church, every image and every festival in Cantalice points back to him. Felice Porri was born in Cantalice on May 18, 1515, into a family of poor peasants. Until the age of 28 he worked as a shepherd and day laborer: no school, no early church career, no patron.

In the autumn of 1543 he joined the Capuchins as a lay brother, that is, without becoming a priest, in the convent of Cittaducale, and then moved on to Anticoli di Campagna. In 1547 he was sent to Rome as a questing friar for the Capuchin convent of San Bonaventura. From then on, for 40 years, his life was a single thing: walking around Rome barefoot with a bag to collect alms for the friars and for the poor, repeating the formula that earned him the popular nickname Brother Deo Gratias.

It would be a minor biography if not for what happened during the famine of 1580, when the city authorities turned to him to organize the collection of food for Rome. An illiterate lay friar became for a few months the welfare infrastructure of the capital of Christendom. He was on friendly terms with Philip Neri and knew Cardinal Charles Borromeo: the Rome of the Counter-Reformation also ran through a barefoot beggar.

He died in Rome on May 18, 1587, on his birthday, at the age of 72. He was beatified on October 1, 1625 by Urban VIII and canonized on May 22, 1712 by Clement XI: he was the first Capuchin friar in the history of the order to be raised to the altars. Cantalice, which in the 16th century was a frontier village defending itself from its neighbors, found itself in the 18th century the birthplace of a universal saint. The jump in status explains the Baroque church at the top of the village and explains why the festival of May 18 still fills the staircase today.

The history of Cantalice (RI): from the vanished lake to the Savoys

Few local histories read as well as this one, because in Cantalice the landscape changed as much as the politics.

Lake Velino and the cut of Curius Dentatus

The three bodies of water you see from Cantalice are the remains of the ancient Lake Velino, a basin that in the Pliocene age covered the valley from Rieti to Piediluco, fed by underground springs and by the snowmelt of the Terminillo massif. The Rieti Plain that you see cultivated today was water.

Around 272 BC the Romans carried out a hydraulic work of enormous scale: a drainage cut known as the Cava Curiana, which allowed the waters of the Velino to flow toward the Nera. The reclamation turned the valley floor into farmland, gave rise to the course of the Velino river in its present form, and created the drop of water we now know as the Marmore Falls. It's worth dwelling on this fact: the most photographed waterfall in central Italy is not a natural phenomenon, it is a Roman public work, and from the viewpoint at Cantalice you look at the basin that work emptied.

The consequence for Cantalice was twofold. On one side the reclaimed plain offered land and passage. On the other, the water regime stayed unstable for centuries, with recurring flooding of marshes, which explains why the historic settlements are all at altitude and none in the middle of the plain.

The three strongholds and the birth of the castle

The first documentary mention of Cantalice dates to 1081. The origin of the settlement is traced back to the late Roman age and the early Middle Ages, in connection with the raids that pushed the people of the plain to seek refuge at altitude, and this is historiographical reconstruction, not documentation.

The historic core took shape around the 12th century from the fusion of three distinct entities: the Castle of Rocca di Sopra, the small Rocca della Valle and the Rocca di Sotto. The names already tell the layout, stepped down the slope that descends toward the Rieti Plain. The settlement was organized around the stronghold, of which the tower with its inner cistern remains, and around the village that grew little by little at the foot of the fortified structure. The church of Santa Maria, with its portal of 1548, was born precisely as a sign of the union among these strongholds.

Cantalice (RI) on the frontier line

In 774, with the extension of Charlemagne's authority over Italy, the Sabina became a linear frontier, the Terminatio Confinorum, between the Lombard Duchy and the nascent Papal States. The separation lasted between the 9th and the 12th century and divided the Sabina into two components, a Roman one and a Rieti one.

In 1200, after the annexation of the Diocese of Rieti to the Papal States, the Sabina became unified again, but some northeastern territories stayed with the Norman-Swabian Kingdom and then with the Angevin one. In 1216 the border shifted again, crossing the group of the Reatini Mountains between Leonessa and Cantalice, which were assigned to the Angevin Kingdom.

This condition of borderland is the structural fact of Cantalice's history. From 1233 to 1861, for more than 600 years, the territory belonged to the Justiciarate of Abruzzo and therefore to the Neapolitan orbit, not the papal one: Cantalice looked down on Rieti from above and was politically elsewhere. Only in 1927, with the reorganization of the districts, did the village pass from the province of L'Aquila to that of Rieti. Whoever arrives today thinking they are visiting a village of Lazio is visiting a village that for six centuries was Abruzzese and Neapolitan.

1302, Cittaducale and the tension with Rieti

The new border worried Charles II of Anjou, king of Naples, who in 1302 ordered the founding of Cittaducale as a control fortress, also because of the problems already existing between Cantalice and Rieti. A new city built on a drawing board to keep a frontier in check: the orthogonal grid of Cittaducale, which you can still read on the map today, comes from this military decision.

1557 and the motto Fortis Cantalica Fides

The conflicts between Cantalice and Rieti went on for centuries and peaked in 1557, when the people of Rieti violently assaulted the village. Cantalice held out and drove the attackers back. From that episode came the motto Fortis Cantalica Fides, still associated today with the civic coat of arms, made up of an eagle with open wings on a tower flanked by a lion and a holm oak.

The coat of arms should be read element by element, because it's a summary of local history: the eagle points to imperial and then Neapolitan sovereignty, the tower is the Cassero, the lion is the military strength it claimed, and the holm oak is the tree that gives the village its name. Few Italian municipal coats of arms are as explicit.

The 1600s, the factions and the brigands

With the 17th century a phase of decline began, culminating in 1655 in infighting among Cantalice families, the Lancia, the Tafani, the Marritto, the Carbuglia. To the internal feuds were added the raids of brigand bands that spread through the territory, forcing communities to pay them instead of the royal treasurer. One of these bands was led by Giuliano Micheli.

It's a chapter that reads badly with modern categories. Apennine brigandage of that century was not only crime: it was also the way mountain communities, squeezed between heavy taxation and a distant state, in effect renegotiated their relationship with power. The fact that the bands demanded the tax in place of the royal treasurer says everything about the vacuum of sovereignty in this stretch of the Apennines.

Between Farnese, Bourbons and Unification

In 1716 Cantalice obtained authorization to detach itself from the government of Cittaducale and to appoint its own governor, a step of administrative autonomy that crowned a slow economic and social growth. In 1761 the male line of the Farnese family died out: at the death of Duke Antonio the estates passed to Elisabeth Farnese, wife of Philip V of Spain, and right after, with the accession of her son Charles to the throne of the Two Sicilies, the jurisdictional arrangement of the kingdom was redrawn. The return to the Neapolitan orbit brought a period of relative prosperity.

After the uprisings of March 1821 and the defeat of Guglielmo Pepe, the brigands reappeared. The cholera of the 1840s hit hard, and the new borders between the Papal States and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies broke up the territorial unity of the municipality. In the Risorgimento the people of Cantalice appeared both among Garibaldi's troops and in the regular army.

The origin of the name Cantalice (RI): the holm oak, the stone, the fountain

The history of Cantalice and its name have always been tied to the words holm oak and oak. The most accredited etymology derives the place name from the contraction of two words, one Greek and one Latin, cata and ilex, meaning near the holm oak. It's an explanation that has the merit of matching the landscape: the holm oak appears in the municipal coat of arms, and oaks marked the historic entrance to the territory.

The holm oak stone and the Scentella fountain

Tradition says a holm oak suddenly sprang from the cracks of a rock behind the sacristy of the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Cantalice. Fragmentary local historical research indicates that this rock, believed capable of promoting fertility, was removed from its original position around 1200 by order of Innocent III, worried by a devotion judged too pagan.

Kept secretly for a few centuries, according to the same local sources the stone reappeared around 1610 set into a wall, and stayed there forgotten for four centuries, surviving even the restorations that in 1952 turned that rudimentary spring into the Scentella fountain, visible along the road between Cantalice Inferiore and Cantalice Superiore, enlarged with the rectangular basin on the side that served the village women as a wash house. During that work the stone was removed from the dry-stone wall that surrounded the spring and set again near the fountain, where it can still be seen on the right side.

As always in these cases, I separate the levels: the fountain and the stone are there and you can touch them. The tale of the miraculous holm oak and the papal removal belongs to local tradition, not to verifiable documentation. That said, the continuity of a stone cult from the medieval age to the wash house of the 20th century is a fascinating anthropological phenomenon even regardless of the truth of the anecdote.

The Passo delle due Querce, the real gate of Cantalice (RI)

The medieval access to the village came by two roads: one skirted the mountain ridges to the north and connected Cantalice to Leonessa, the other, less steep, climbed from the Rieti plain and from Cittaducale, working its way up the slopes to today's Cantalice Superiore. The entry point into the municipal territory was already marked in the Middle Ages by two big oaks planted near today's settlement of Vazia.

The documentary traces of that boundary run through the centuries. One of the most cited appears in a text by the Procurator sent by the Vicar General of Abruzzo after the earthquake of 1703, which hit the whole Rieti area with effects felt as far as Tivoli. Describing the damage, the text notes that once past the pass of the two oaks conspicuous damage can be seen and that, although only one house was razed to the foundations, within the settlement there are 43 uninhabitable buildings, while the rest can be repaired but not without very great expense.

The surprising thing is that the Passo delle due Querce still exists. You can recognize it on the right side of the paved road that climbs from Vazia toward Cantalice, shortly before the end of the straight stretch at kilometer 1, near the welcome sign: two big centuries-old oaks, the first of which brushes the asphalt, still serve as the entrance gate to the village. And the old medieval path has not disappeared: it runs alongside the provincial road, in some stretches coincides with the asphalt, in others cuts through the wooded area and the hills as a shortcut, and is still used by people on foot.

The Lakes Lungo and Ripasottile Reserve seen from Cantalice (RI)

Part of the municipal territory falls within the Lakes Lungo and Ripasottile Partial Nature Reserve, established by Lazio regional law number 94 of June 17, 1985. The protected area extends over about 3,200 hectares of wetland and involves six municipalities: Cantalice, Colli sul Velino, Contigliano, Poggio Bustone, Rieti and Rivodutri. Management is regional, with offices in Rieti at Via Cintia 87, telephone 0746 200999.

The habitats of the reserve

The protected landscape is what remains of the old Velino basin: a plain crossed by a dense network of watercourses, with marsh woods of alders, poplars and willows, compact reed beds and stretches of white and yellow water lily that fringe the perimeter of the lakes. The Velino river flows with clear water in which brown trout can be seen with the naked eye from the bank.

Whoever comes from above, from Cantalice, has the advantage of reading this mosaic from the outside before entering it: from the village you can make out very well the geometry of the reclamation canals, the bands of reeds and the two main bodies of water. It's an exercise to do before going down into the reserve, because it makes understandable an environment that from the inside, among the reeds, is illegible.

The birds of the reserve

The natural value of the area is above all ornithological. In the winter months and during migration periods the wetland hosts many wintering and passing species, while among the nesting birds of the reed beds are the penduline tit, the great reed warbler, the reed warbler and the Cetti's warbler. Among occasional visitors the greater flamingo and the osprey are documented. The kingfisher is one of the species that visitors always hope to see and that with a minimum of patience you really do spot.

Along the nature trail around the lakes there are observation structures, raised boxes on stilts, designed for spotting and photographing lake wildlife without disturbing it. If you go to photograph, bring a real telephoto lens: without at least 300 millimeters equivalent you go home with landscapes and no birds.

How to visit the reserve

The permitted activities include birdwatching, hiking, bike touring, horseback riding, guided visits and sport fishing. The reference center for ornithological activity is the dedicated station inside the protected area. Hours, the calendar of guided visits and access rules should be checked with the managing body before planning the outing, because they vary with the season and with nesting periods.

The operating advice: the reserve is best enjoyed at dawn, not at noon. Between 7 and 9 in the morning bird activity is at its peak, the light is low and excellent for photography, and the plain is still free of summer haze. Whoever arrives at 11 sees reed beds and little else.

The trails that start from Cantalice (RI)

Cantalice is an excellent starting point for the mountains, and this is perhaps the most underrated aspect of the village. From the village depart trails and dirt roads that climb the slopes and embrace the whole range surrounding the Terminillo, reaching as far as Leonessa.

The Passo del Lupo route

For mountain bikers the reference route is the one that connects Cantalice to Leonessa through the Passo del Lupo: 47 kilometers with over 1,600 meters of total elevation gain, among woods and open views. It's not a ride for beginners or for city bikes: you need legs in good shape, enough water, and the ability to read a track, because phone coverage on the slopes is not reliable everywhere.

The Valle degli Angeli

Among the hiking itineraries marked in the territory, the Valle degli Angeli is the best known: a loop of about 13 kilometers on a CAI trail, with a stated travel time of around four and a half hours. It's the classic full day, to be tackled with hiking boots and not sneakers, and to be avoided in the middle hours of July and August.

Cantalice (RI) and the Terminillo

The Terminillo, 2,217 meters, is the peak that closes the horizon above the village, and the municipal territory of Cantalice is one of the four that share its mountain, along with Rieti, Leonessa and Micigliano. The mountain that Romans have been visiting for snow for almost a century is the same one you can reach on foot from Cantalice starting at your own front door. In winter the ski resort completely changes the traffic on the provincial road: if you visit the village on a snowy Sunday, count on queues on the road from Rieti.

The Cammino di Francesco and the Holy Valley of Rieti

Cantalice stands along the route of the Cammino di Francesco, the itinerary inaugurated in 2003 that in about 80 kilometers and eight stages connects the places marked by the passage of Francis of Assisi in the Rieti valley. The village is met on the stage that joins Poggio Bustone to Rieti, and this position makes it a natural stop for walkers.

The four Franciscan sanctuaries of the Holy Valley are at the four corners of the valley: Greccio, where in 1223 Francis staged the first representation of the Nativity, Fonte Colombo, where the definitive rule of the order was drafted, Santa Maria della Foresta and Poggio Bustone.

La Foresta, the sanctuary of the grape miracle

Among the four, the one worth a detour even for those who don't walk is La Foresta, about three kilometers from Rieti. It was a small rural church dedicated to San Fabiano, with a vineyard and a vegetable garden attached. In 1225 Francis stayed there for more than 50 days at the invitation of Cardinal Ugolino, the future Gregory IX, to treat his eyes. Tradition says the pilgrims who flocked there ate so many grapes that they compromised the harvest, and that the saint had the few remaining bunches gathered, obtaining from the pressing more than double the wine of the previous year. The basin of the story is still visible. The complex passed to the Hermits, then to the Clareni until 1568, and since 1648 it has been run by the Friars Minor.

The rest of the Holy Valley from Cantalice (RI)

Within half an hour's drive of the village you can also reach the Faggio di San Francesco and the springs of Santa Susanna in Rivodutri, the remains of the Roman villa of Quintus Assius in Colli sul Velino, the hermitage of San Michele Arcangelo in Morro Reatino, the village of Contigliano and of course Rieti, which ancient geographers placed at the exact center of the peninsula. With three days you can build a complete loop without ever repeating a road. For organized groups and custom itineraries in the Rieti area, the planning is handled by someone who does itinerary tour design for a living.

The strengozze, the dish that tells the story of Cantalice (RI)

Cantalice strengozze are a handmade pasta of water and flour, without egg, dressed with tomato, garlic and persa, an aromatic plant similar to marjoram that grows in this stretch of the province of Rieti. In 2006 the Lazio Region entered them in the list of traditional agri-food products.

It's worth understanding what a recipe like this means. Water and flour, no egg, no animal fat in the sauce, a wild herb for fragrance: this is the cooking of a community that had very little and built its signature dish on handwork and on the aroma of a mountain plant. The herb makes the real difference, and anyone who tastes strengozze outside this territory, dressed without persa, is eating something else.

The shape is that of an irregular spaghetti pulled by hand, related to the Umbrian strozzapreti and to the many poor pastas of the central Apennines. The cooking is short and the texture must stay rough: if you find them smooth and uniform, they aren't handmade.

The festivals of Cantalice (RI): when the village fills up

The festival of San Felice, May 18

May 18 is the village's double date: birth and death of the patron saint. The festival includes the procession with the statue of San Felice through the streets of the village, religious services and cultural events. Blessed bread is part of the tradition. It's the day the staircase shows its original function: not a scenic route, but the path along which the community moves in procession.

The Sagra delle Strengozze

The main food event falls at the end of August, on a weekend that traditionally revolves around the 24th and 25th of the month, with dinner service on Saturday and lunch and dinner on Sunday under a covered structure set up in the village, with a view over Lake Lungo and Lake Ripasottile. The event passed 20 editions years ago. Dates and times change from year to year and should be confirmed on the channels of the Comune and the organizing associations.

The Festa della Trebbiatura

At the beginning of July the Festa della Trebbiatura takes place, with a reenactment of traditional farming work. It's the kind of event that seems like folklore to many visitors and that instead, if you look closely at the machines and the gestures, is a lesson in the history of Apennine peasant labor.

The other summer evenings

On summer weekends the village organizes religious festivals, music evenings and concerts in the lower part of the settlement. The calendar comes together little by little and is spread locally: if you want to land on a festival evening, check the Comune's channels the week before, not two months ahead.

When to go to Cantalice (RI) and when to avoid it

The best season is the second half of May and the whole month of September. In May the village is green, the patron saint's festival animates the staircase and the temperature lets you climb without suffering. In September the light on the lakes is the best of the year and the plain loses its mugginess. October gives excellent colors on the wooded slopes above the village.

The month to avoid for a visit on foot is July, and in particular the hours between 12:00 and 16:00: the staircase is exposed, the stone gives back heat and there is no continuous shade. If you can only go in summer, climb at 8 in the morning or after 18:00. In winter the village is beautiful with snow on the Terminillo behind it, but frozen steps demand real attention and some churches stay closed.

The weekend of the sagra is a choice of side: you find the village alive, full, with the food stands running, and you find difficult parking and lines. If you're after the village's silence, pick any other weekend.

Cantalice (RI) with children

The village works well with children from age six up, who tackle the staircase like a game and find in the alleys, the arches and the fountains a natural obstacle course. With very small children a stroller is unusable in Cantalice Superiore: you need a baby carrier or a child-carrier backpack.

The combination I recommend to families is half a day in the village and half a day in the reserve. The observation huts on the lakes, with even a modest pair of binoculars, hold children's attention far more than any church, and the plain offers flat routes suitable even for small bikes. The story of the saint who walks barefoot around Rome asking for alms, told well in front of the frescoed dome, always works.

Accessibility: let's be honest

Cantalice Superiore is not accessible to people who use a wheelchair, nor to those with significant difficulty walking. 350 steps of uneven stone allow no compromise. People with these needs can still enjoy the village: the lower part is flat, the viewpoints reachable by car along the provincial road offer an excellent view over the lakes, and the Sanctuary of San Felice all'Acqua can be reached by vehicle. The reserve too, with its level routes on the Rieti Plain, is much more manageable than the historic center.

What's around Cantalice (RI)

The village lends itself to being a base for an entire stay in the Rieti area. In about 10 kilometers you reach Rieti, with its medieval historic center, the papal palace, the underground passages of the consular road and the position of Umbilicus Italiae claimed since antiquity. To the north the road leads to Poggio Bustone and Rivodutri. To the west, beyond the lakes, Contigliano. To the southeast, Cittaducale with its Angevin checkerboard layout.

Widening the radius you reach Antrodoco along the Salaria toward L'Aquila, Amatrice in the upper Rieti area, and in a good hour the Marmore Falls, which ideally closes the story of Lake Velino begun from the viewpoint at Cantalice. If you're heading back to Rome you can break the trip at Tivoli, though the detour is substantial. To organize your Rome days before or after the foray into the Rieti area, the list of the best things to do in Rome remains useful.

The extent of the ancient Lake Velino seen from Cantalice

A curiosity about Cantalice (RI)

The curiosity that throws everyone off concerns the village's political affiliation. Whoever arrives in Cantalice today is convinced they are visiting a village of Lazio in the province of Rieti, and on paper they are right. But the paper is very recent. From 1233 to 1861, for more than 600 consecutive years, Cantalice was part of the Justiciarate of Abruzzo, that is, of the Kingdom of Naples, and not of the Papal States. After Unification it merged into the province of L'Aquila, and only in 1927, with the reorganization of the provincial districts that created the province of Rieti, did it pass to Lazio.

This is not an administrative curiosity out of an almanac: it explains the village's physiognomy. It explains why Cantalice looked at Rieti as a foreign and hostile power, so much so that it fought it for centuries and adopted a warlike motto after repelling its assault in 1557. It explains why in 1302 an Angevin king had Cittaducale built right below, to hold the border. It explains why the cooking, the dialect vocabulary and certain devotional forms of the village have more in common with Abruzzo than with the Roman Sabina.

There is a second level of curiosity inside the first. The border between the two worlds did not run far away: it ran between Cantalice and Leonessa, that is, between two villages that today belong to the same province and are a handful of kilometers apart. Walking today on the trails that connect the two centers means crossing, without noticing, what for centuries was an international frontier with customs posts, smuggling and militias. The topography preserves almost no trace of it, the place names do, and so does local memory.

Something nobody tells you about Cantalice (RI)

No guide will tell you that the panorama you admire from the viewpoint at Cantalice is the result of a Roman public works project of the 3rd century BC. The cultivated Rieti Plain, the three remaining lakes, the orderly course of the Velino: none of this is natural landscape. Until the Roman intervention of around 272 BC, when the Cava Curiana was dug to drain Lake Velino toward the Nera, below Cantalice there was water to the horizon.

The practical consequence is that Lake Lungo, Lake Ripasottile and the little Lake Ventina are not three lakes: they are the surviving pools of a single basin that covered the valley from Rieti to Piediluco. And the Marmore Falls, which millions of people photograph as a natural wonder, is the terminal outlet of that same hydraulic work. Looking at the lakes from Cantalice with this information in mind changes the scene completely: you are not looking at a landscape, you are looking at the residual effect of a decision made by the Roman Senate.

There is a corollary that directly concerns the village. The water regime on the plain stayed unstable for two millennia, with recurring flooding of marshes and successive reclamations up to the 20th century. It is this instability, besides military security, that is the reason all the historic settlements of the Rieti area are at altitude and none in the middle of the valley. Cantalice is not perched only to defend itself from men: it is also perched so as not to end up in the water and the malaria. Whoever understands this stops reading the village as a postcard and starts reading it as rational.

The advice I give you for visiting Cantalice (RI)

There is only one piece of advice, and it's counterintuitive: don't drive up to the top. Leave the vehicle in the lower part, at the first useful chance, and tackle the staircase on foot from the bottom up, calmly, allowing a good hour to make 3,000 steps uphill, stopping at every scenic opening. The village is built to be crossed in that direction, and only in that direction does it deliver the alternation of closed alley and open view that is its signature.

The second element of the advice concerns timing. Arrive in the late afternoon, so as to be at the top by the Torrione del Cassero one hour before sunset. The light at the end of the day comes from the west, that is, from the side of the lakes, and lights them up: it's the only moment when the Rieti Plain stops being an indistinct green surface and becomes a readable map of canals, reed beds and bodies of water. In the morning the same view is backlit and disappoints.

Third: plan the day in two parts. Half a day in the village and half in the reserve, or the village and the Sanctuary of San Felice all'Acqua on foot. Cantalice alone, visited in a rush, is dispatched in 40 minutes and leaves little. Cantalice set within its plain, its mountain and its water is a full day and one of the best you can have in the Rieti area. If you have to choose a single pairing, choose the reserve: the village looks down at it all day long and understanding it up close closes the circle. If you'd rather rely on a professional for the day, you'll find the licensed tour guides of the TourLeaderPro network, who work all over central Italy.

One last thing, and I say it as a professional: bring your lunch or book. In a village of 2,400 inhabitants the dining offer is limited and off-season it can be almost absent. Showing up at 1 p.m. without having called is the surest way to end up eating in Rieti. For a private outing with a guide, the TourLeaderPro contacts are the starting point.

Another well-known fact, yet rarely cited

Everyone knows Cantalice gave birth to San Felice. Almost nobody dwells on what his figure means in historical terms: Felice was the first Capuchin ever to be canonized, and this makes the village the birthplace of the founding saint of an order that in the 16th and 17th centuries was one of the most incisive forces of the post-Tridentine Church.

The truly rarely cited detail is another. Felice was a lay brother, not a priest: illiterate, of peasant origins, entered the order at 28 after a life as a shepherd and day laborer. For 40 years, from 1547 to 1587, his job was to walk around Rome barefoot with a bag to collect alms. He did not preach, did not write, did not found anything. And yet during the famine of 1580 it was the city authorities who turned to him to organize the city's food supply, and in the Rome of the Counter-Reformation popes he was on friendly terms with Philip Neri and knew Charles Borromeo.

The canonization came very late compared with his death: beatified on October 1, 1625 by Urban VIII, he was proclaimed a saint on May 22, 1712 by Clement XI, 125 years after his death. The Baroque church that dominates Cantalice today is the village's architectural answer to that recognition. Whoever looks at that building as an ordinary village church misses the point: it is a monument raised by a poor community to celebrate that one of its own had risen higher than anyone else, with nothing to start from.

The right photo to take in Cantalice (RI)

The photograph everyone attempts is the village seen from below, from the provincial road that climbs from Vazia, with the compact front of stone houses and the Terminillo behind. It's a good photo and worth taking, preferably early in the morning, when the sun lights the front of the village without flattening it.

But the right photo is another one, the opposite: from the top of the village toward the plain, with the lakes in frame. It's shot from the little square of the church of Santa Maria halfway up the staircase, or from the gaps along the climb, or from the upper area near the Torrione del Cassero. The time is late afternoon, with the low sun from the west striking the bodies of water and turning them into luminous sheets within the green of the plain. With a moderate wide angle you hold together the foreground of stone roofs and the background of the lakes, and the depth of the slope does the rest.

A technical tip that saves disappointment: the scene has a very wide tonal range, with the roofs in shadow and the water lit up by the light. Shoot with bracketing or underexpose by one stop and recover the shadows in post-processing, otherwise the lakes get blown out. And if you have a telephoto lens, try perspective compression too: 200 millimeters from the village toward the plain brings together the roofs, the reed beds and the outline of the mountains beyond the lakes in a way the wide angle doesn't deliver.

The third image, the one almost nobody takes home, is vertical: the staircase framed from below in a narrow stretch, with the walls closing in and a single opening of sky at the end. It's the photograph that explains Cantalice better than any panorama, because it tells the compression of space from which the surprise effect of the viewpoints comes.

Some important events that happened here in history

The first event in order of importance does not concern the village but its landscape, and it is the cutting of the Cava Curiana around 272 BC: the drainage work that emptied Lake Velino, reclaimed the valley, generated the river's course in its present form and created the drop of the Marmore. No other human intervention has changed so deeply the scene you see from Cantalice.

1081 is the date of the first documentary mention of Cantalice, the moment the village enters written history. During the 12th century the historic core takes shape from the fusion of the Castle of Rocca di Sopra, the Rocca della Valle and the Rocca di Sotto: three garrisons that become a village.

In 774 the extension of Charlemagne's authority over Italy had already made the Sabina a frontier between the Lombard Duchy and the Papal States, the Terminatio Confinorum, and that border condition reorganizes in 1216, when the line shifts, crossing the Reatini Mountains between Leonessa and Cantalice, assigned to the Angevin Kingdom. In 1233 begins the belonging to the Justiciarate of Abruzzo, destined to last until 1861.

In 1302 Charles II of Anjou orders the founding of Cittaducale to garrison that border and to contain the tensions between Cantalice and Rieti. In 1548 the portal of the church of Santa Maria is dated, the building that seals the union of the strongholds.

1557 is the decisive year of collective memory: the people of Rieti assault the village, Cantalice holds and drives them back. From that episode comes the motto Fortis Cantalica Fides that still accompanies the municipal coat of arms. In the early 1570s the church of the Madonna della Pace is erected to celebrate the peace restored with Rieti.

In 1587 Felice da Cantalice dies in Rome, on May 18, on his 72nd birthday. In 1625 the beatification, in 1712 the canonization: two dates that change the symbolic status of the village and produce the great 18th-century church.

1655 marks the low point of civic life, with the struggles among the Lancia, Tafani, Marritto and Carbuglia families and with the brigand bands that impose their own taxation in place of the royal treasurer. In 1703 the earthquake hits the whole Rieti area: the report of the Procurator of the Vicar General of Abruzzo counts in Cantalice 43 uninhabitable buildings and a single house collapsed from the foundations. In 1716 the village obtains permission to detach itself from the government of Cittaducale and to appoint its own governor.

In the 19th century come the return of brigandage after 1821, the cholera of the 1840s and the territorial fracture produced by the new borders between the Papal States and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. With the Risorgimento the people of Cantalice split between Garibaldi's troops and the regular army. In 1927 the passage from the province of L'Aquila to that of Rieti closes the long Abruzzese season. In 1985, with regional law number 94 of June 17, the lakes reserve is born: the plain that the Romans had drained becomes a protected area.

Who has passed through Cantalice (RI)

The name that comes first is Francis of Assisi. The saint frequented the Holy Valley of Rieti for a long time between 1209 and 1226, founded there the four sanctuaries of Greccio, Fonte Colombo, La Foresta and Poggio Bustone, and in 1225 stayed more than 50 days at La Foresta, a guest of Cardinal Ugolino, to have his eyes treated. The Cammino that today bears his name passes through Cantalice on the stage between Poggio Bustone and Rieti: the village is inside the geographic perimeter of his Rieti story.

The figure who belongs to Cantalice by birth is Felice Porri, the future San Felice da Cantalice, born here on May 18, 1515. His Roman life put him in contact with two central figures of the Counter-Reformation: Philip Neri, with whom he had a friendship, and Cardinal Charles Borromeo, who knew him. Through him the village enters the network of the great religious personalities of the second half of the 16th century.

Among the figures of power who decided the fate of the territory, we should recall Charles II of Anjou, king of Naples, who in 1302 ordered the founding of Cittaducale to control this border, and further back Charlemagne, whose extension of authority over Italy in 774 fixed the Sabina as a line of separation between two worlds. Innocent III also appears in local memory, tied to the story of the removal of the holm oak stone judged an object of too pagan devotion: an episode that belongs to the tradition reported by local research and not to certain documentation.

In the 1600s, in another sense, the gang leader Giuliano Micheli passed through here, at the head of one of the brigand formations that imposed their own levy on the communities of the territory. In 1703 it was the Procurator sent by the Vicar General of Abruzzo who walked the path of the two oaks to draw up the report on the earthquake damage: an unknown official whose report is today one of the best sources on the historical topography of the village.

One last presence, collective and continuous, is the pilgrims. Since the cult of San Felice began, and in a structured way since the Cammino di Francesco was inaugurated in 2003, Cantalice sees people pass through every year who climb its staircase with a backpack on their shoulders. They aren't famous figures, but they are the only category of visitors that has frequented this village without interruption for centuries.

Quick questions about Cantalice (RI)

How much does it cost to visit Cantalice (RI)?

Nothing. The village is an inhabited place, not a paid site: the staircase, the alleys, the viewpoints and the open churches can be visited free of charge. The expenses are transport, parking where required and food.

How long does it take to visit Cantalice (RI)?

For the village alone, climb and descent included, with stops at the viewpoints, allow two hours. Adding the Sanctuary of San Felice all'Acqua brings you to half a day. With the lakes reserve the visit becomes a full day.

How do you get to Cantalice (RI) from Rome?

By car you take the Salaria, SS4, to Rieti and continue on the provincial road that climbs from Vazia, for a total of just over 90 kilometers. By public transit you reach Rieti by train or bus and continue with the Cotral line to Cantalice. Schedules should be checked on the carrier's official website.

Is Cantalice (RI) wheelchair accessible?

The historic center is not: 350 steps of uneven stone make it impassable. The lower part of the village, the viewpoints reachable by car along the provincial road, the Sanctuary of San Felice all'Acqua and the level routes of the lakes reserve are accessible.

How many steps does the staircase of Cantalice (RI) have?

Local sources indicate around 350 stone steps between the top of the village and the square in the lower part.

Where do you park in Cantalice (RI)?

In the spaces in the lower part and in the wide spots along the road that climbs. In Cantalice Superiore cars don't enter. The practical rule is to leave the vehicle at the first free spot and continue on foot.

Who was San Felice da Cantalice?

Felice Porri, born in Cantalice on May 18, 1515 and died in Rome on May 18, 1587, a Capuchin lay brother, a questing friar for 40 years in the streets of Rome. Beatified in 1625 by Urban VIII and canonized in 1712 by Clement XI, he was the first saint of the Capuchin order.

When is the patron saint of Cantalice (RI) celebrated?

On May 18, a date that coincides with both the birth and the death of the saint, with a procession of the statue through the streets of the village and religious services.

When is the Sagra delle Strengozze held in Cantalice (RI)?

At the end of August, on a weekend that traditionally revolves around the 24th and 25th of the month, with service on Saturday evening and lunch and dinner on Sunday. The exact dates change every year and should be confirmed on the Comune's channels.

What are strengozze?

A handmade pasta of water and flour, without egg, dressed with tomato, garlic and persa, an aromatic herb similar to marjoram typical of this stretch of the province of Rieti. Since 2006 they have been among the traditional agri-food products of Lazio.

How high is Cantalice (RI)?

The historic center sits just over 580 meters up, while the municipal territory rises above 600 meters and continues toward the high elevations of the Reatini Mountains.

How many inhabitants does Cantalice (RI) have?

Just over 2,400, according to the most recent registry data available.

Which lakes can you see from Cantalice (RI)?

Three: Lake Lungo, Lake Ripasottile and the little Lake Ventina. They are the remains of the ancient Lake Velino, drained by the Roman hydraulic work of the 3rd century BC.

Is Cantalice (RI) on the Cammino di Francesco?

Yes. The village is met on the stage that connects Poggio Bustone to Rieti, within the itinerary of about 80 kilometers and eight stages inaugurated in 2003.

Can you climb the Terminillo starting from Cantalice (RI)?

Yes, trails and dirt roads start from the village and climb the slopes toward the massif. The municipal territory of Cantalice is one of the four that share the mountain, along with Rieti, Leonessa and Micigliano.

What is the Passo del Lupo route?

An itinerary of 47 kilometers with over 1,600 meters of elevation gain that connects Cantalice to Leonessa through woods and open views, very popular with mountain bike enthusiasts.

How do you visit the lakes reserve near Cantalice (RI)?

On foot, by bicycle or on horseback along the equipped routes, with observation huts for birdwatching. Guided visits and access hours should be checked with the managing body, based in Rieti at Via Cintia 87, telephone 0746 200999.

What birds can you see in the reserve near Cantalice (RI)?

Among the nesting birds of the reed beds, the penduline tit, the great reed warbler, the reed warbler and the Cetti's warbler. The kingfisher is a regular presence. Among occasional appearances, the greater flamingo and the osprey are documented.

Where is the Sanctuary of San Felice all'Acqua?

About two kilometers from the old village. According to tradition it stands at the spot where the saint made water gush by striking the ground with a staff. You reach it by car or on foot through the countryside below the village.

Are the churches of Cantalice (RI) always open?

No. Hours follow the services and the availability of the local clergy. The best chances are Sunday morning and the days of the patron saint's festival.

Is Cantalice (RI) good for children?

From age six up it works very well, because the staircase and the alleys become a path of discovery. With very small children a stroller is unusable in the upper part: you need a child-carrier backpack. The lakes reserve with binoculars is the winning pairing.

What is the best time to go to Cantalice (RI)?

The second half of May and all of September. October for the colors of the woods. Avoid the middle hours of July and August, when the staircase exposed to the sun becomes tiring.

What is the difference between Cantalice Superiore and Cantalice Inferiore?

Superiore is the medieval core in stone, pedestrian, cut by the staircase and closed at the top by the Torrione del Cassero. Inferiore is the modern part, on the roads open to cars, where you find the town hall, services and the spaces for festivals.

What does the motto Fortis Cantalica Fides mean?

It is the motto the village gave itself after repelling the assault of the people of Rieti in 1557. It accompanies the civic coat of arms, with an eagle with open wings on a tower flanked by a lion and a holm oak.

Why is Cantalice (RI) called that?

The most followed etymology derives the name from the contraction of cata, from Greek, and ilex, from Latin, meaning near the holm oak. The tree appears in the municipal coat of arms and local tradition ties the place name to the holm oak stone visible today near the Scentella fountain.

Is the food good in Cantalice (RI)?

The offer is small but consistent with the territory, and you find strengozze where they are made by hand. The operating advice is to call first: off-season and outside weekends, opening is not guaranteed.

Is Cantalice (RI) worth visiting on a day trip from Rome?

Yes, provided you combine it with something. On its own the village is used up in a couple of hours. With the lakes reserve, or with Rieti, or with one of the Franciscan sanctuaries of the Holy Valley, it becomes a complete and well-spent day. If you're fitting the trip into a stay in Rome, you can start from the three-day Rome itinerary and add this one at the end.

Are there other villages to see near Cantalice (RI)?

Many: Poggio Bustone and Rivodutri to the north, Contigliano beyond the lakes, Cittaducale to the southeast with its Angevin layout, Leonessa beyond the mountain. Rieti is about 10 kilometers away.

The conclusion on Cantalice (RI)

Cantalice belongs to the category of villages that defend themselves: it needs no staging, no theatrical lighting and no constructed narratives, because it has an urban structure that explains itself to whoever walks it. 350 uphill steps tell the story of a border community better than any educational panel.

If I had to name the moment when this village gives its best, I'd say the late afternoon of a clear September day, from the little square of Santa Maria, with the lakes lit up by the low sun and the staircase already in shade. In that quarter of an hour you understand everything: why the village is up there, what it was watching, and what happened to the valley below it over the last 23 centuries.

Article written by the editorial team of TourLeaderPro, contact them for Private/Corporate/V.I.P. Tours and Experiences.

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