Not many people add Benevento to their bucket list when it comes to city breaks or football matches, especially when most Italians are celebrating their holidays by hitting the beaches of Salerno or Rimini to enjoy the sea. However, Destination Calcio embarked on a multi-game, multi-city trip which included the stunning hilltop town.
It was hot. Very hot. This is, of course, to be expected when one travels to the Campania region of Italy during the end of August.
Located around an hour’s drive north-east of Naples, the drive to Benevento was spectacular, with the autostrada running alongside the ominous presence of Mount Vesuvius. The agenda for Destination Calcio was matchday one of the Serie C season, Gli Stregoni’s home clash with Cavese at the Stadio Ciro Vigorito.
The historical centre of Benevento is located on a hill, and arriving during the siesta period of the day, the city was eerily quiet. The locals — quite rightly — had taken refuge in their homes amid the intense heat, leaving little in the way of open shops for a brioche or iced coffee. Yet walking the narrow and deserted streets made for a nice experience, topped off with a refreshing limonata by the Arco di Traiano, the ancient Roman arch dedicated to Emperor Trajan.
Being in the city on a Monday also meant a lack of open restaurants prior to the late kickoff, even after the mid-day siesta had ceased and people gently trickled out of their houses once the temperature had dropped to a more manageable degree. Don’t believe the opening times displayed on Google, with misinformation rife. Use your better judgement – restaurants in Italy rarely open before 19:30 local time. If in doubt, search for pizza, which was all we could find before the journey to the Vigorito.
The drive to the stadium itself was filled with confusion, yet worth the effort. Despite Cavese fans being banned from attending the fixture due to previous trouble, certain roads leading to the away stand were closed to prevent them from getting in, forcing a diversion that added an extra 15 minutes to the travel time. Yet this is part of the fun of going to lower-league games in the south of Italy, things don’t run smoothly, and you don’t expect them to.
The Vigorito is a fairly new stadium by calcio standards. Opened in 1979, it’s a beautiful concrete monstrosity. Thankfully, it benefits from a lack of athletics track — the blight of many Italian stadia — and thus making the atmosphere much better despite the ground being a third full.
Benevento find themselves in the third tier of the Italian game for the second consecutive season. The club played Serie A football as recently as 2020-21, but just seven wins during the pandemic season meant a return to Serie B. The following season their attempt to make an instant return to the top flight fell just short, as they lost the playoff semi-final to Pisa.
The club never recovered and in 2022-23 finished rock bottom of Serie B, with relegation to Serie C amid cycling through four different coaches, including Fabio Cannavaro. Last season saw a fourth-placed finish in the third tier, which enabled them to qualify for the national play-off and a shot of an instant return to Serie B. In the end, they lost 3-2 to Carrarese in the semi-final and so another season in Serie C begins and playmaking midfielder Gennaro Acampora has returned.
Cavese represented the first hurdle of the new campaign, an entertaining game that see-sawed from one end to the other and the Benevento fans behind the Curva Sud were in full voice, banging, shouting and singing. Luckily for us, the winning goal duly arrived for Benevento – who went a goal down early in the first half – making the match experience so much better. It’s a shame that English-speaking media don’t cover these kinds of matches, and Destination Calcio hopes to change this.
A just-before-the-whistle exit meant avoiding the long queues coming out of the stadium, with the Benevento roads not exactly the widest. A late-night gelato was in store as temperatures still pushed 28 degrees towards midnight, and a gentle stroll along Via Arco di Traiano — the main street in the city which leads to the epic Arco di Traiano.
For a city of 60,000 people, Benevento is remarkably clean, with winding lanes of bars and restaurants offering plenty to do, including the local Irish bar, Craven Road.
Breakfast by the Arco di Traiano is recommended with coffee and cornetti at Bar Sirena, located at the junction of Via Port’Aurea and Via Traiano.
Destination Calcio suggests two days in underrated Benevento. Book yourself some remarkably cheap accomodation, take in the historic city centre, the Museum Sannio, a cappuccino by the Arco and a match at the boistorous Stadio Ciro Vigorito.
Check out our episode Italy, Football Clubs of the South:
