The grass road that runs through Saepinum

The Pescasseroli to Candela droving road, one of the great grass roads of Italian transhumance, runs straight through the Roman archaeological site of Altilia-Saepinum at Sepino.

A Roman town built at a crossroads of grass and stone

Altilia-Saepinum was laid out where the Pescasseroli to Candela tratturo met the road from the Matese massif toward the Tammaro plain, and Rome took the site in 293² BC, during the third Samnite war. The crossing determined both the foundation of the town and its street plan.

What the two axes produced is a full urban grid in open country, with no modern town on top of it. What stands now is a complete small town: forum, basilica, theater, walls with towers, and 4 city gates, among them Porta Bojano and Porta Terravecchia.

The droving road did not go around any of it. You walk the tratturo as the main axis of the ruins, which is a rare thing to be able to say about a road older than the buildings beside it.

Free entry since March 1, 2026, and why that is temporary

Admission has been free since March 1, 2026 because works are under way, and the free entry ends when the works do. The ordinary tariff is €10 full, €2 reduced for ages 18 to 25, free under 18, with an annual card at €20.

The site opens every day from 8:15 am to 7:15 pm (08:15 to 19:15 on Italian signs), last entry 30 minutes before closing. It is at C.da Altilia 1, on the SP82 at Sepino, in the province of Campobasso, run by the Parco archeologico di Sepino.

There is a source conflict worth knowing about. The culture ministry page lists €10 and the regional museums page lists free entry; the operator resolves it by publishing the temporary free admission and keeping the ordinary tariff visible next to it.

2019 on the UNESCO list, 10 states by 2023

Transhumance was inscribed on the representative list of intangible cultural heritage in 2019, on a joint nomination by Italy, Austria and Greece, decision 14.COM 10.b.2, reference 01470³. In 2023 the file was extended to 10 states, reference 01964³, decision 18.COM 8.b.14.

The 7 states added in 2023 are Albania, Andorra, Croatia, France, Luxembourg, Romania and Spain. The old URL for the 2019 element now redirects to the extended 2023 file, which is why some pages date the inscription to 2023.

The inscription covers two forms, horizontal transhumance across flat country and vertical transhumance in the mountains. The Italian element of it moves on the tratturi.

What the UNESCO file does not say

Nothing in the 2019 file or the 2023 extension names Molise, names Abruzzo, or counts the tratturi. That is worth stating flatly, because a great deal of regional promotion attributes claims to UNESCO that the file does not contain.

The frequently repeated line that Molise holds the largest surviving tratturo network is not verified on any official source we have read, so it does not appear on this page as a fact. Nor do the lengths in kilometers of the Pescasseroli to Candela or Celano to Foggia routes.

What is documented, from the Abruzzo side, is the Tratturo Magno linking L'Aquila to Foggia, with its northern end beside the basilica of Collemaggio. That is a regional source, not a UNESCO one, and it is quoted here as such.

How to walk it

Start at Saepinum, where entry is free while the works last and the gates open at 8:15 am. It is the one place where the grass road, a Roman street grid and a ticket office coincide.

Then look at the ground rather than the monuments. A tratturo is a corridor of grass wide enough for a flock, and its width is the thing that survives when the paving does not.

For the region these roads cross, see Molise and Abruzzo.

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