Bed and breakfast accommodation in Avellino Monasteries

Avellino lies in Campania, east of Naples, surrounded by what is still an important agricultural area, despite the drift away from the land in search of better living standards. The town, though an ancient foundation, is mainly modern, with two big industrial manufacturing zones on its outskirts. Earthquakes have always been a huge problem in the area, repeatedly destroying much of the town; the last ones were in 1980 and 1981. It was heavily bombed by the Allies in World War II and is also in the firing line for deposits of ash from eruptions of Vesuvius, which lies due west. The Cathedral, with its Romanesque crypt, somehow survived, as did the church of Sta Maria della Grazia.

Avellino became Christian, and the seat of a bishopric,  around 500. The area is home to the Benedictine monastery and sanctuary of Montevergine, founded in 1119 and still visited by thousands of pilgrims annually. This huge complex, set in superb mountainous surroundings, is home to a so-called Black Madonna, an icon said to be a copy of a portrait of the Virgin by St Luke, which was revered in Constantinople. The Montevergine Madonna may be one of the oldest versions of the original, lost many centuries ago, in western Europe, and the monastery stands, as so many do, on the site of a previous pagan shrine.