Frosinone

Frosinone is the working capital of the Ciociaria — the land named for its shepherds' rawhide sandals, the "ciocie", whose folk costume, songs and tambourine dances remain the region's signature at every festival. The city divides its labours honestly: the modern lower town runs the province's commerce and administration on the valley floor, while the old upper town keeps the longer memory on its hill — Roman Frusino's amphitheatre remains and inscriptions, the cathedral's campanile as the skyline's exclamation, lanes with sudden views across the Lepini and Ernici mountains.

Music holds an address of genuine standing: the Conservatorio "Licinio Refice" — named for the Ciociaria-born master of twentieth-century sacred music — has grown into one of central Italy's significant conservatories, its orchestras, jazz department and student concerts giving Frosinone a musical pulse beyond its size and feeding players into ensembles across the country; the Teatro Nestor and the season it anchors complete the civic stage.

The province around is the quiet treasury: the Charterhouse of Trisulti in its holm-oak mountains, Casamari's Cistercian perfection, Anagni's papal frescoes, Arpino's cyclopean walls — day trips of the first rank in every direction, with Rome and Naples both within reach down the Valle Latina. Sandals in the folklore, sacred music in the curriculum, abbeys on the horizon: Frosinone administers riches it wears without ceremony.