Atripalda

At the gates of Avellino, on the banks of the Sabato River, Atripalda holds one of the oldest stories of Irpinia: here stood Abellinum, the Roman city from which the entire province takes its name. In the archaeological park of Civita, one can still walk along the walls, the aqueduct, and the grand domus of the 1st century AD.

In the heart of the historic center, the Collegiate Church of Sant'Ippolisto — built in the sixteenth century on a Paleochristian basilica — hides beneath its surface the Specus Martyrum, the crypt that preserves the relics of Sant'Ippolisto, martyred around 304 AD, and of twenty other martyrs of Abellinate Christianity: a place of extraordinary charm, listed among the FAI's Places of the Heart.

Among the Dogana dei Grani — a symbol of past trade and now a museum —, noble palaces such as the seventeenth-century Palazzo Caracciolo with its loggia and Italian gardens, the churches and convents of the center, Atripalda is the perfect gateway to the history of Irpinia.