The Orange Flag is the prestigious recognition of the Italian Touring Club for excellent small Italian villages and is awarded to Caposele which thus becomes the second certified location in the province of Avellino after Zungoli and brings the number of "orange" municipalities in Campania to 6.
The brand is temporary, every three years the municipalities must resubmit their candidacy and be subjected to analysis by the TCI which verifies the existence of the expected standards and thus guarantees travellers constant monitoring of the quality of the tourist offer and administrations an incentive to continuous improvement.
The recognition, to the Municipality of Caposele, was awarded because "The location has numerous and varied attractions, well signposted, which can be visited thanks to extended opening hours. The center is lively, with several shops selling typical products and restaurants and it is possible to discover all its beauties thanks to a well signposted visit route. Also interesting is the path Le pietre della memoria, testimony of what happened during the earthquake of 1980. ” so stated Lorenzo, ghost visitor TCI.
The official delivery ceremony will take place on Saturday 3 May 2025.
The Municipality of Caposele is located within the Parco dei Monti Picentini, in the Valle del Sele area, on the slopes of Mount Paflagone, and its main naturalistic feature is linked to water, in particular to the Sorgenti del Sele.
In the hamlet of Materdomini stands the majestic Sanctuary of San Gerardo Maiella, rebuilt and expanded on its original site in several phases, with the particular Sala dei Fiocchi and the Gerardino Museum. In the capital, the Museo delle Acque, which tells stories, territories and people and does so through water, its most precious resource, is worth a visit, as is the Museo delle Macchine di Leonardo Da Vinci which presents about twenty inventions, taken from the artist's original drawings and made to scale, the church of the Madonna della Sanità and the sources of the Sele river near Piazza Sanità, which represent the starting point of the Apulian Aqueduct, which, from Irpinia, reaches all the way to Salento. Also worth seeing is the particular artistic temple of San Lorenzo, designed by the architect Vittorio Gigliotti in 1986, whose project in 1988 won first prize at the International Architecture Exhibition in New York.
The territory of Caposele lends itself to numerous outdoor activities immersed in nature, such as: walks on the paths of the River Park, the Anello delle 7 fontane, a path full of water and with suggestive panoramic views, the Ciclovia dell’acqua, a cycling and hiking path of about 500 km and the Caposele Climbing Area dedicated to climbing enthusiasts. Finally, the Le pietre della memoria path is interesting, 15 stones in symbolic places with QR codes that allow you to see and listen to video testimonies that tell what happened to people and places on November 23, 1980, the date of the terrible earthquake that hit the area.
Among the typical products we point out the matassa, homemade pasta with durum wheat semolina flour and soft wheat that comes in the form of filaments, of variable thickness and length, the amaretti, round and dark biscuits with the flavor of toasted hazelnuts and the muffletto, fresh bread with a dough made from potatoes and flour.
Among the most significant events are the Feast of San Gerardo Maiella (16 October), the Sagra delle Matasse (9 August) and the Christmas Market (first weekend in December, with the tallest Christmas tree in Europe, 33 metres high!).