Monte Cassino Abbey

Monte Cassino Abbey tickets: which one to buy

Entry to the abbey is free, with a small charge for the museum, which holds manuscripts, ivories and finds from the excavations. The practical question is transport: the abbey sits on a hill 520 metres above the town of Cassino, nine kilometres of hairpins by road, with a bus service that runs a few times a day and no rail link to the top. A car or a taxi from Cassino station is the usual answer.

Day trips from Rome and Naples cost a moderate amount and typically combine the abbey with the Polish war cemetery below or with Gaeta on the coast; the drive is about two hours from either city. Guided tours of the abbey itself are arranged through the monastery for groups. The basilica is free to enter and the Commonwealth and Polish cemeteries on the slopes are open at all hours without charge. The monastery bookshop sells a good English guide to the ruins and the battle, which is more useful than any audio guide on the hill.

Visiting Monte Cassino Abbey: what to see

Benedict of Nursia founded the first monastery here around 529 and wrote his Rule for this community, which makes Monte Cassino the mother house of Western monasticism. It has been destroyed four times: by the Lombards around 570, by Saracens in 883, by an earthquake in 1349 and by Allied bombing on 15 February 1944, when 1,400 tonnes of explosive reduced it to rubble during the Italian campaign. What stands now was rebuilt between 1948 and 1964 exactly as it was in the eighteenth century, on the principle of where it was and how it was.

Three cloisters climb in terraces to the basilica, whose interior is a reconstruction of the baroque original in marble and gilt. The tomb of Benedict and his sister Scholastica lies under the high altar. The view from the loggia takes in the Liri valley and, below, the white ranks of the Polish cemetery. A museum room preserves photographs of the abbey before and immediately after the bombing, alongside manuscripts that survived because they had been moved to the Vatican.

Monte Cassino Abbey opening hours and the best time to go

Open daily, with a long midday break in the older pattern and closing in the late afternoon; the museum keeps shorter hours and shuts on some weekdays. The road up is narrow and can be closed by snow in winter or by cloud that reduces visibility to nothing, which also erases the view that is half the reason to come. Spring and autumn are best. The abbey is a working monastery, and services are sung through the day.

Dress code is enforced at the basilica door. Photography is allowed outside and restricted inside. Allow ninety minutes at the abbey and thirty at the Polish cemetery, which is a short drive below and is where most Italian and Polish visitors spend their time. Sunday mass is sung in Gregorian chant and is open to all, and the acoustics of the rebuilt basilica are remarkable.