The 10 best mountain towns inside a national park within 90 minutes of Pescara

1. Santo Stefano di Sessanio

Best for a walk through the old town. It is on the list of Italy's most beautiful villages.

1 h 18 min from Pescara · homes €810 to €1,150 a m² in the center · 105 people

Why visit Santo Stefano di Sessanio

One hundred and five people live in the commune, on the southern rim of the plateau inside the Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park. The village belonged to the Medici from 1579 to 1743, who ran the saffron and wool trades that gave the place its early wealth and left their mark in the gate and the tower built under their rule.

By the late twentieth century most of the houses stood empty. In 1999 the Italian-Swedish entrepreneur Daniele Kihlgren began buying the ruined buildings, one at a time, restoring them rather than replacing them, which is why the stone, the lime plaster, and the timber inside are original.

The upper village and its scattered rooms are the direct result of that decision: there was no single building large enough to house a hotel, so the hotel became the village itself. What Santo Stefano offers now is that reversal, a settlement nearly emptied by the late twentieth century, rebuilt not by adding to it but by restoring what was already there, house by house, and still being rebuilt today in the tower rising again on its old footprint.

The village sits at 1250 meters.

The catch: January nights average 3 degrees below zero.

What to see in Santo Stefano di Sessanio

• Torre Medicea (ruderi). The tower's stump stands on its original footprint, scaffolded, the reconstruction visible in progress against the rest of the village skyline.
• Borgo medievale e Sextantio. Rooms are scattered through the restored houses of the village rather than gathered under one roof, so staying here means walking the lanes between stone walls and timber to reach them.
• Palazzo delle Logge. A Renaissance loggia looks over the village square and the gate built under the same Florentine administration, its arches the clearest surviving mark of that rule.

How to get to Santo Stefano di Sessanio

Pescara is about 1 h 18 min away by road.

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2. Castelvecchio Calvisio

Best for a small town. 124 people live here.

1 h 11 min from Pescara · homes €340 to €490 a m² in the center · 124 people

Why visit Castelvecchio Calvisio

Castelvecchio Calvisio sits at 1,067 meters on a ridge above the Tirino valley, in the Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park. The medieval village has a rare and distinctive form: a fortified ellipse of stone walls, with houses built into the walls themselves, and internal alleys laid out orthogonal to the perimeter.

The barbacani, broad external stone staircases climbing the houses, mark each level of the multi-storey dwellings. Narrow streets pass under vaulted arches; the steps of the alley stairs widen as they rise.

The population sits at 124, one of the smallest in the province. The Church of San Giovanni Battista, with its bell tower above the rooftops, stands at the center of the elliptical plan.

The Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie is just below. Ruins of the original castle survive on the highest point of the settlement, the defensive watchtower from which the village grew.

The village has been part of the Borghi Autentici network for over a decade, anchored on conservation of its medieval form.

The village sits at 1067 meters.

The catch: It has lost 21% of its people since 2015.

What to see in Castelvecchio Calvisio

• Borgo fortificato (centro storico). Fortified elliptical village with houses built into the perimeter walls, orthogonal alleys, vaulted passages, and external stone staircases called barbacani.
• Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista. Parish church at the center of the elliptical plan, with its bell tower the only structure rising above the rooflines of the village.
• Chiesa di Santa Maria delle Grazie. Second medieval church of the village, just below the center, with architectural elements that mark the original Romanesque-Gothic transition.

How to get to Castelvecchio Calvisio

Pescara is about 1 h 11 min away by road.

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3. Castel del Monte

Best for a walk through the old town. It is on the list of Italy's most beautiful villages.

1 h 8 min from Pescara · homes €470 to €680 a m² in the center · 383 people

Why visit Castel del Monte

The village sits in the Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park, on the southern slope of Monte Bolza, with Rocca Calascio facing it across the valley and Campo Imperatore stretching north. It descends from the pre-Roman Vestini; finds from an 11th-century BC necropolis lie in the valley below, long before any wool trade or Medici buyer arrived.

The upper village, its stone core threaded with tunnels and vaulted passages, once housed the shepherds who drove flocks south to Puglia and returned to a cluster of churches built for their safekeeping and their thanks. That world ended in the 1850s, and the population emptied with it: 383 people remain where a wool trade once drew merchants from the Medici's own city.

What is left is performed rather than lived at scale, in the symbolic transhumance and in the August gathering that briefly fills the same streets and tunnels the shepherds once used. The place now runs on memory of the trade that built it, kept alive one night a year and in a cheese still made from spring pastures.

The village sits at 1346 meters.

The catch: January nights average 4 degrees below zero.

What to see in Castel del Monte

• Chiesa Matrice di San Marco. Baroque interior; holds the patron-saint statue carried through the village in the August procession.
• Chiesa di San Donato Fuori le Mura. Romanesque church just outside the medieval walls, among the oldest religious buildings in the village, with a small square in front used for festivals.
• Chiesa della Madonna del Suffragio (dei Pastori). Devotional center of the transhumance, hung with ex-votos left by herders for safe return from Puglia.

How to get to Castel del Monte

Pescara is about 1 h 8 min away by road.

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4. Rivisondoli

Best for a soak. The comune has thermal baths.

1 h 29 min from Pescara · homes €1,850 to €2,500 a m² in the center · 659 people

Why visit Rivisondoli

Rivisondoli sits on the flank of Monte Calvario, looking down at the plateau that runs north toward Roccaraso. The town was first recorded in 724 in a diploma of Grimoald II, Duke of Benevento, and grew in the 12th century along the Via degli Abruzzi, the military and trade route across the central Apennines.

It was once known for its weapons production. The 1792 fire destroyed most of the village, and the opening of the Sulmona-Isernia railway in the 19th century turned it toward tourism rather than trade.

The Italian royal family kept a residence here in 1913. Rivisondoli and Roccaraso face each other across the Cinque Miglia plateau, close enough that their ski slopes were joined into one domain and their names are now said together.

The older village, rebuilt twice, climbs one flank of the mountain while the plateau below stays open and treeless, the same ground that once slowed traders and caravans on the route through the Apennines. What began as a stop on a military road became, after fire and war remade the town twice, a place oriented instead toward winter visitors and a single night in January.

The village sits at 1320 meters.

The catch: January nights average 3 degrees below zero.

What to see in Rivisondoli

• Alto Sangro ski area. The lift network runs between 1,309 and 2,142 meters, joining Rivisondoli's slopes to Roccaraso's across the open plateau.
• Presepe Vivente. Hundreds of villagers in period costume take the hillside outside town for the performance, the cast spread across the open ground rather than a stage.
• Altopiano delle Cinque Miglia. Treeless and averaging 1,250 meters, the plateau in the Alto Sangro is prone to extreme winter winds, a stretch that historically caught travelers unprepared.

How to get to Rivisondoli

Pescara is about 1 h 29 min away by road.

Everything we know about Rivisondoli

5. Campo di Giove

Best for a ski week. There is a mapped ski area in the comune.

1 h 22 min from Pescara · homes €750 to €1,000 a m² in the center · 746 people

Why visit Campo di Giove

Campo di Giove sits at 1,064 meters at the foot of the southwestern Maiella, one of the highest communes inside the Maiella National Park. The name comes from Campus Jovis, after a temple to Jupiter said to have stood here from around 300 BC, raised, local legend says, by Romans thankful for a storm that turned a battle against the Paeligni.

A villager called Odorisio appears in a document from January 1136. In the 14th century the village was a Cantelmo stronghold; it then passed to the Caldora, the Belprato, the Pignatelli, and finally the Recupito.

Above the village, the ski area runs from Le Piane at 1,150 meters up to about 2,350 meters, the highest lifts in Abruzzo. The mother church of Sant'Eustachio holds the statue of the patron saint.

Sant'Antonino was one of the sixteen convents founded by Fra Pietro da Morrone, the hermit who would become Pope Celestine V. The Master of Campo di Giove, an anonymous 15th-century painter named for the polyptych he made for the village church, is on display at the Museo Nazionale d'Abruzzo in L'Aquila.

The village sits at 1064 meters.

What to see in Campo di Giove

• Chiesa Madre di Sant'Eustachio. Parish church of the village patron, with the statue of Sant'Eustachio, the saint celebrated each September with the village feast.
• Convento di Sant'Antonino. Wall fragments by a spring are all that remain of one of the sixteen convents founded by Fra Pietro da Morrone, the future Pope Celestine V, listed in a 1274 papal bull.
• Palazzo delle Logge. 16th-century palazzo on the main piazza, once home to the Ciufelli family, named for the small loggias along its top floor.

How to get to Campo di Giove

Pescara is about 1 h 22 min away by road. The full route from Rome.

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6. Lama dei Peligni

Best for truffle season. It belongs to the national association of truffle towns.

1 h 17 min from Pescara · homes €455 to €680 a m² in the center · 1,021 people

Why visit Lama dei Peligni

Lama dei Peligni sits at 669 meters on the southern flanks of the Majella, between the Aventino river and the massif behind it. The name comes from a pre-Latin word for ground where water pools.

The earliest evidence of human use here, the so-called Uomo della Maiella, was excavated from Contrada Fonterossi at the start of the twentieth century, a burial dated between 7000 and 5000 BC. The Grotta del Cavallone opens at 1,475 meters in the wall above town, the highest accessible natural cave in Europe, 1,300 meters of karstic gallery branching into three secondary tunnels.

The Maurizio Locati museum at the entrance to the village runs a fenced reserve for the Abruzzo chamois, the species the zoologist worked to reintroduce in the Majella park. The Maiella Brigade fought partisan actions out of these slopes in 1943-44, and the obelisk at San Pietro commemorates them.

The village sits at 669 meters.

The catch: It has lost 22% of its people since 2015.

What to see in Lama dei Peligni

• Grotta del Cavallone. Karst cave at 1,475 meters, 1,300 meters of gallery on the border with Taranta Peligna, the highest accessible natural cave in Europe.
• Museo Naturalistico Maurizio Locati. Wildlife and archaeology museum at the village entrance, dedicated to the zoologist who reintroduced chamois in the Majella park.
• Giardino Botanico Michele Tenore. Botanical garden adjacent to the museum, reconstructing Majella flora alongside a Neolithic village display and chamois enclosure.

How to get to Lama dei Peligni

Pescara is about 1 h 17 min away by road.

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7. Pacentro

Best for a long lunch. A food guide lists Taverna dei Caldora here.

1 h 9 min from Pescara · homes €420 to €620 a m² in the center · 1,058 people

Why visit Pacentro

Pacentro sits at 650 meters on a hill spur in the Peligna valley, eight kilometers from Sulmona and inside the Maiella National Park. The Castello Caldora, with its three surviving square towers, dominates the village from the Colle Castello above.

The site has held a castle since the eleventh century; the structure visible today was begun by the Caldora-Cantelmo family in the late fourteenth century and bought by the comune in 1957 and restored. On the first Sunday of September, the Corsa degli Zingari sends barefoot runners down a rocky slope from Monte Ardinghi into the village in honor of the Madonna di Loreto.

The race is documented since the fifteenth century. The other thing people come for is the Ciccone house.

Madonna's paternal grandparents, Gaetano Ciccone and Michelina Di Iulio, emigrated from Pacentro in 1919. The pop singer visited in 2013.

The village sits at 650 meters.

What to see in Pacentro

• Castello Caldora-Cantelmo. Late fourteenth-century fortress on the Colle Castello, three of its four corner towers still standing, restored after 1957.
• Borgo medievale. Stone houses arranged on terraces below the castle, listed among the Borghi più belli d'Italia, preserved in its medieval plan.
• Chiesa di Santa Maria Maggiore. Sixteenth-century parish church with a baroque interior, holding the Madonna di Loreto honored in the September race.

How to get to Pacentro

Pescara is about 1 h 9 min away by road.

Everything we know about Pacentro

8. Pescocostanzo

Best for a long lunch. Food guides list two tables here.

1 h 25 min from Pescara · homes €2,150 to €2,700 a m² in the center · 1,085 people

Why visit Pescocostanzo

Pescocostanzo sits at 1,395 meters at the southern edge of the Quarto Grande plateau, the high karst basin above the Sangro valley. The town was reshaped between 1456 and the eighteenth century under the Capua family and a generation of Lombard masons who arrived to build for them.

The plan is unusually regular for a mountain commune: a grid of stone houses oriented to the wind, surrounded by woods and pasture. The Collegiata di Santa Maria del Colle, restructured by Cosimo Fanzago in the seventeenth century, is one of the rare five-nave churches in Abruzzo.

Its wrought iron Chapel of the Sacrament gate, made by Sante di Rocco between 1699 and 1707, is the masterpiece of local ironwork. Bobbin lace, merletto al tombolo, is still made here.

The Museo del Merletto a Tombolo inside Palazzo Fanzago shows the technique and the patterns. Filigree gold, carved wood, and lace are still sold on the Corso Roma.

The village sits at 1395 meters.

The catch: January nights average 3 degrees below zero.

What to see in Pescocostanzo

• Collegiata di Santa Maria del Colle. Five-nave church begun in the late Middle Ages and remodeled by Cosimo Fanzago in the seventeenth century.
• Museo del Merletto a Tombolo. Inside Palazzo Fanzago, displays the local bobbin lace tradition with patterns, tools, and live demonstrations.
• Palazzo Fanzago. Designed by the baroque architect Cosimo Fanzago in 1624, the seat of the lace museum and civic offices.

How to get to Pescocostanzo

Pescara is about 1 h 25 min away by road.

Everything we know about Pescocostanzo

9. Pettorano sul Gizio

Best for a small town. 1,259 people live here.

1 h 10 min from Pescara · homes €350 to €520 a m² in the center · 1,259 people

Why visit Pettorano sul Gizio

Pettorano sits at 656 meters on a hill above the Gizio river, at the southern entrance of the Valle Peligna, at the foot of the Maiella. The Castello Cantelmo, a pentagonal stone tower built in the 11th century and held by the Cantelmo family from 1310 to the mid-1700s, dominates the village from above.

The 16th and 17th centuries left palazzi behind: Palazzo Croce, Palazzo Gravina, Palazzo Vitto-Massei. The Church of San Nicola outside the walls is documented in 1112.

Today the commune sits inside the Riserva Naturale Monte Genzana, and the castle, restored between 1992 and 1998, hosts exhibitions and the reserve's visitor center. The Marsican brown bear passes through these woods.

Pettorano is a Borghi più belli d'Italia and one of the Comuni Virtuosi, the network of municipalities that signed up to specific environmental commitments. The population has held steady around 1,300 while neighbouring villages shrank.

The village sits at 656 meters.

What to see in Pettorano sul Gizio

• Castello Cantelmo. Pentagonal 11th-century fortress above the Gizio, seat of the Cantelmo family from 1310 to the mid-18th century, restored as exhibition space.
• Chiesa di San Nicola. Small church outside the medieval walls, already documented in 1112, the oldest religious building in the commune.
• Chiesa di Sant'Antonio Abate. Patron-saint church inside the centro storico, repeatedly rebuilt after earthquakes, with traces of earlier medieval structure.

How to get to Pettorano sul Gizio

Pescara is about 1 h 10 min away by road.

Everything we know about Pettorano sul Gizio

10. Scanno

Best for a swim. The comune's beach holds a Blue Flag.

1 h 20 min from Pescara · homes €800 to €1,200 a m² in the center · 1,681 people

Why visit Scanno

Scanno sits in the Sagittario valley, ringed by the Majella foothills and the Marsicano massif. The lake lies three kilometers down the valley from the town, at a lower elevation, so the walk between them moves from stone alleys to open water framed by the same slopes that produced it: a landslide off the mountain dammed the Tasso river and left the basin behind.

The town's isolation, closed in by the surrounding massifs, is what let the older costume and its headdress survive into the era of the camera, and it is what drew photographers to record it rather than something they invented. The goldsmiths' filigree, made in the same stone streets the women walked, belongs to the same thread: a village shaped by its enclosure in the mountains, still making by hand what it has always made.

The village sits at 1057 meters.

What to see in Scanno

• Lago di Scanno. Seen from above, the water reads as a clean heart shape against the valley walls.
• Centro storico. Stone-alley medieval center where the black costume, with its folded headdress some historians trace to Balkan or Eastern origins, is still worn by older women against limewashed walls.
• Chiesa di Santa Maria della Valle. Parish church first documented in the eleventh century, rebuilt in the seventeenth, with a Renaissance portal and Baroque interior.

How to get to Scanno

Pescara is about 1 h 20 min away by road.

Everything we know about Scanno