The old centre of Castelvittorio is essentially a single long ridge of stone, with houses built directly into the rock and a network of vaulted alleyways linking the two sides of the spine. Many of the passages are roofed — covered for both weather and defence — and the cumulative effect is of a small fortified labyrinth that has barely changed in five hundred years.
Wandering takes about an hour. The lanes are paved with stone slabs and steep in places, with the occasional opening onto a tiny piazza or a balcony giving views straight down into the wooded valley below.