Campobasso

Campobasso has rents, house prices and restaurant prices among the lowest of Italy's regional capitals. Heating, for the long winter, and the car, needed to move outside the city, weigh more. The Murat centre is the most sought-after zone; the old town and the outer districts are the cheapest.

The nineteenth-century centre is the most sought-after zone and the most convenient for office workers; the old town offers cheap houses needing renovation; Vazzieri is the university district; San Giovanni, Colle dell'Orso and Cappuccini are residential and family-oriented. Wide market and low prices. Public housing through IACP Molise and the Comune; student housing through ESU Molise.

Registry and municipal services are at Palazzo San Giorgio and online with SPID/CIE, with short waiting times. SEA manages door-to-door sorted waste collection. Tap water is drinkable. Shopping happens in the centre's shops, at the weekly market and in supermarkets; the Albino provincial library is in the centre.

To enter with a dog, cat or ferret you need a microchip, an EU pet passport or health certificate and a valid rabies vaccination. Mandatory registration in the regional pet register, lead at all times and a muzzle to hand. Pets allowed on trains under Trenitalia rules and in apartment buildings by law.

Rules depend on who is arriving: EU/EEA/Swiss citizens (no visa, registration with the Comune after three months), non-EU citizens for stays up to 90 days (Schengen rule, type C visa where required) and for long stays (national type D visa and a residence permit within eight working days of arrival).

Campobasso has an urban bus network run on behalf of the Comune (SEAC), a railway station with regional trains to Termoli, Isernia, Rome and Naples, and regional and long-distance coach lines. It has no airport: the nearest are Naples, Pescara and Rome. To move around Molise a car is necessary.

Euro, cards accepted almost everywhere, a legal cash limit. Anyone living in Italy for most of the year is tax resident and taxed on worldwide income under three IRPEF brackets; specific regimes exist for the self-employed (forfettario), inbound workers, foreign pensioners and new residents. Contributions go to INPS; annual return with the 730 or Redditi form.

Campobasso hosts ASReM's Social-Health District no. 1, based with its desks at via Ugo Petrella 1. The Cardarelli hospital is the hub of the single regional hospital network. GP choices and revocations at the district offices; bookings at the CUP-PASS desks on via Petrella, via Gramsci and via Toscana, as well as at participating pharmacies and GP practices.

Non-EU pensioners enter with the elective residence visa, EU pensioners through free movement; public healthcare is accessible by compulsory or voluntary registration. Optional 7% regime on foreign income for those moving to small southern municipalities. Cheap houses in villages, services concentrated in cities.

Campobasso's economy is based on regional public administration, health, university, retail and services, with agri-food (pasta, dairy, oil, wheat) as the main industry. The private labour market is small and the emigration of qualified young people is the region's structural issue.

A VAT number (partita IVA) from the Agenzia delle Entrate for freelancers; for businesses the Comunicazione Unica to the Registro delle Imprese, which also notifies the Agenzia, INPS, INAIL and SUAP. Main forms: sole proprietorship, SNC/SAS, SRL and SRLS, SPA. Compulsory PEC, annual chamber fee, e-invoicing. Invitalia incentives; non-EU citizens need a self-employment permit or the investor visa.

The University of Molise, founded in 1982, has its main campus in Campobasso (Vazzieri) and sites in Pesche (Isernia) and Termoli; it offers medicine, economics, law, agriculture, humanities and sciences. Student support is run by ESU Molise. A small university with a good staff-to-student ratio and low living costs.

Campobasso is the capital of the Molise region and province, seat of the Regional Council and executive and of the Prefecture; the municipality has no elected municipi. The patron saint is San Giorgio, feast on 23 April. The Corpus Domini Procession of the Misteri, with its thirteen eighteenth-century "ingegni", is the tradition that defines the city. The dialect is of the upper-southern type.

At 700 m in the Sannio hills, Campobasso has cold winters with frequent and sometimes heavy snowfalls, summers hot by day and cool at night, and many hours of sunshine. Its air is among the cleanest of Italy's regional capitals. The area has medium-high seismicity: the 2002 Molise earthquake struck the province.

Campobasso is visited in a day: the Monforte Castle on top of the hill, the Romanesque churches of San Giorgio and San Bartolomeo in the old town, the Museo dei Misteri, the Samnite Museum, the Murat town. Corpus Domini with the Procession of the Misteri is the event of the year. Trips: Sepino (Saepinum), the Matese, the drove roads, Termoli and the Tremiti islands.

The food is rural and pastoral: cavatelli, pasta with truffles, caciocavallo and scamorze, lamb, pampanella and Tintilia wine. The weekly market and the centre's shops are the reference. The villa De Capoa is the historic garden; the Matese and the drove roads are the nearby nature. Campobasso play at the Selvapiana stadium. Evenings along the corso and in the old town.