Monte Cassino, Historic hill in Cassino, Italy

Monte Cassino is a hill southeast of Rome in the Liri Valley, rising to 520 meters (1,706 feet) and dominating the plain below. On its summit stands the Benedictine abbey of the same name, a large white complex with courtyards, cloisters and a richly decorated basilica that was entirely rebuilt after the war.

Benedict of Nursia founded an abbey here in 529, which was destroyed and rebuilt several times over the following centuries. During the Second World War, the abbey lay at the center of the Battle of Monte Cassino between January and May 1944, when the building was destroyed by Allied bombing.

The Polish Chapel at the summit honors the Polish soldiers who fell here during the Second World War and still draws many Polish pilgrims today. The large monastery complex serves as an active center of spiritual life where monks perform daily Gregorian chants that visitors can hear during services.

You can reach the summit by car along a winding mountain road that offers parking near the monastery complex. The grounds around the abbey are mostly accessible, but the hillside location involves steep paths and staircases that visitors with limited mobility should consider.

The abbey's library once held over 100,000 volumes and tens of thousands of parchments, incunabula and manuscripts, including works by Galen, Hippocrates, Cicero, Pliny and Apuleius. When the Allies announced the bombing time in advance, the monks moved these treasures to the Vatican. The lower part of the two-storey tower where Benedict lived and wrote his Rule survived the 1944 destruction.