The best olive oil towns that eat well within 90 minutes of Pescara
Abruzzo and the southern Marche press some of the best oil in Italy, and the country between the Adriatic and the Gran Sasso is built for it: clay hills, dry summers, groves of Dritta and Leccino running down to the sea light. Autumn is the season to come, when the mills open and the new oil goes out green and peppery on grilled bread, and the kitchens turn to lamb, chitarra pasta cut on the wire frame, brodetto on the coast and pecorino from the higher pastures. The old centres are brick and travertine rather than the grey stone of the mountains further west, which gives them a warmer colour in low sun. Wine follows the oil here, Montepulciano d'Abruzzo and Pecorino from vineyards on the same slopes.
Most people arriving at Pescara airport turn towards the beach, or drive west into the Gran Sasso and Campo Imperatore for the big landscape, and the parks fill in August with the same crowd that fills the lidos. Sulmona takes the day-trippers who want a walled centre and confetti sweets, and the Trabocchi coast south of Ortona has become the region's photographed stretch, its fishing platforms booked out through summer. All of it is worth seeing. None of it is where the oil comes from.
The groves are on the hills in between, an easy drive from the coast road, and the towns that sit among them have both a mill and a table worth a detour. Some look over the Adriatic from a ridge, some sit back towards the Vomano and the Tronto, and one is a full brick-and-travertine city that most travellers pass on the motorway. They belong to the national association of olive-oil towns, and a dining guide has named a table in each.
Of the 61 communes we have mapped within 90 minutes of Pescara, 6 qualify as olive oil towns that eat well: each belongs to the national association of olive-oil towns, and a dining guide has named a table in each. The smallest, Ripatransone, has 4,072 residents.
If you are still choosing, we have also written The 8 best hill towns that eat well within 90 minutes of Pescara and The best coastal towns that eat well within 90 minutes of Pescara.
Ripatransone
Why visit Ripatransone
Ripatransone sits at 494 meters on a ridge between the Tesino and Menocchia valleys, twenty kilometers from Ascoli Piceno and seven from the Adriatic, with views from the Sibillini and Gran Sasso to the coast that earned it the nickname Belvedere del Piceno. The hill has been inhabited since prehistory and was settled by the Umbri and then the Piceni; after centuries of Roman quiet a medieval town grew here from a circle of castles unified in 1096.
Pope Pius V raised it to City and diocesan see in 1571. The name combines ripa, cliff, with Transone, the first feudal lord.
The Vicolo più stretto d'Italia, the narrowest alley in Italy at 43 centimeters and 32 at its tightest point, runs between two stone houses near Via Margherita: shoulders go sideways. The Cavallo di Fuoco, a wooden horse covered in fireworks that gallops across the main piazza on the Sunday after Easter, has run since 1682.
Iervasciò, Trattoria da Rita have been named by a guide.
What to see in Ripatransone
- Vicolo più stretto d'Italia. The narrowest alley in Italy, 43 centimeters wide and 32 at its tightest point, between two stone houses near Via Margherita.
- Piazza XX Settembre. The main square of the centro storico, with the Palazzo del Podestà, the Cathedral of San Gregorio Magno and the medieval Torre Civica.
- Cattedrale di San Gregorio Magno. Cathedral built between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on the site of an earlier church, raised to cathedral status by Pope Pius V in 1571.
How to get to Ripatransone
Pescara is roughly 70 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the working months for Ripatransone. The Tesino and Menocchia valleys turn green from April, the Cavallo di Fuoco runs on the Sunday after Easter, and the autumn light brings the clearest views from the ridge across to the Sibillini and the sea. July and August touch the low thirties; the ridge breeze keeps the centro storico cooler than the coastal plain seven kilometers below. Festival Frittella di Zia Maria falls in September.
Loreto Aprutino
Why visit Loreto Aprutino
Loreto Aprutino sits at 290 meters on a hill twenty kilometers inland from Pescara, in the so-called Golden Triangle of Abruzzo olive oil that it shares with Pianella and Moscufo. Pre-Roman necropoleis at Colle-Fiorano and Farina-Cardito show a settlement long before the medieval town.
The Romanesque-Gothic church of Santa Maria in Piano, built around 1280, holds the Giudizio particolare delle anime, a wall fresco in encaustic technique that shows souls crossing a bridge thin as a human hair, falling into a river of boiling pitch if not saved; the Aquinas family commissioned the cycle. Castello Chiola dominates the ridge above the town, restored after Italian unification in 1863.
The olive-oil tradition runs to the fourth century BC; the local DOP is Aprutino Pescarese, and the town's Museo dell'Olio explains the chain from grove to bottle. The Acerbo Castelli ceramics collection covers majolica from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century.
La Bilancia have been named by a guide.
What to see in Loreto Aprutino
- Chiesa di Santa Maria in Piano. Church from 1280 with the encaustic fresco Giudizio particolare delle anime, the bridge-of-hair Judgment commissioned by the Aquinas family.
- Castello Chiola. Medieval castle on the highest point of the ridge, restored after 1863, now a hotel and still the dominant skyline feature.
- Museo Acerbo delle Ceramiche di Castelli. Collection of Castelli majolica from the fifteenth to nineteenth century, the most prestigious ceramic tradition of Abruzzo.
How to get to Loreto Aprutino
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Pescara is roughly 38 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June is the green window in the Aprutino hills, with mild evenings and active olive groves. September and October bring the harvest and the new-oil season; tasting tours run through both months. July and August are hot at 290 meters, and visitors usually move between the cool nave of Santa Maria in Piano and the shaded courtyards of the centro.
Atri
Why visit Atri
Atri sits at 442 meters on three hills ten kilometers from the Adriatic. The town was the pre-Roman Hadria, a Picene and then Italic settlement, refounded by Hadrian as Colonia Aelia Hadria.
The emperor's family came from here, and the Adriatic Sea takes its name from the same Hadria. The Co-Cathedral Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta was built in the 13th and 14th centuries on the site of an earlier 9th-century church, which itself stood on a Roman temple to Hercules.
Andrea de Litio painted the apse cycle of the Lives of Joachim, Anne and Mary between 1460 and 1481, the greatest fresco cycle of the Abruzzo Renaissance. The Acquaviva, dukes of Atri from the late 14th century, made the town their seat and commissioned heavily.
Below the upper town, the Calanchi di Atri reserve protects a 390-hectare badlands landscape carved by erosion. Atri is a member of the Città dell'Olio network for the surrounding olive groves.
Hostaria Zedi have been named by a guide.
What to see in Atri
- Cattedrale Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta. 13th-14th-century co-cathedral on the site of an earlier 9th-century church and a Roman temple to Hercules, with 1460-81 Andrea de Litio frescoes.
- Calanchi di Atri. 390-hectare badlands reserve south of town, eroded clay gullies rising from the Piomba valley at 104 meters to Colle della Giustizia at 468 meters.
- Palazzo Acquaviva. Seat of the dukes of Atri from the 14th century, with decorations commissioned by Isabella Piccolomini in the early 1500s.
How to get to Atri
Pescara is roughly 40 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June is the green season in the Atri hills, before the calanchi turn the heavy summer ochre. September and October are the dry, clear months, with the olive harvest beginning in mid-October. July and August are hot, with the upper town offering some breeze from the Adriatic ten kilometers away. Sagra degli Spaghetti al Pesto Casolano, delle Anguille e del Baccalà falls in August.
Pineto
Why visit Pineto
Pineto sits at sea level, one of the Sette Sorelle, the seven Adriatic resorts of the Teramo coast. The town was planned in the 1920s by Luigi Filiani as a beach resort under pine forest, and renamed Pineto in 1925 after Gabriele D'Annunzio's poem La Pioggia nel Pineto.
In 1929 it replaced Mutignano, the older hill village above, as the capoluogo of the comune. Two kilometers south of the centre stands the Torre del Cerrano, built around 1568 by Charles V as a watchtower against Ottoman raiders.
In 2010 the tower and the stretch of sea in front of it became Abruzzo's first marine protected area, 3,431 hectares of coast and shallow water. The beach has held a Blue Flag in most years since 2007.
The pine canopy, planted to hold the dunes, still shades the seafront promenade as far north as the Vibrata river.
Resilienza, La Conchiglia d'Oro, Bacucco d’Oro have been named by a guide.
What to see in Pineto
- Torre del Cerrano. Sixteenth-century watchtower built around 1568 under Charles V against Ottoman raids, now the gateway to Abruzzo's first marine reserve.
- Area Marina Protetta Torre del Cerrano. 3,431 hectares of protected coast and shallow Adriatic water established in 2010, the first marine reserve in the region.
- Pineta Catucci. Coastal pine forest planted in the early twentieth century to hold the dunes, shading the seafront promenade and the bike path.
How to get to Pineto
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Pescara is roughly 26 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through September is the season. June and September are the best beach months, warm but not hot, with the marine reserve open for guided snorkelling and the bike path along the pineta in full use. July and August bring Italian summer crowds, especially from Pescara, and the seafront fills.
Città Sant'Angelo
Why visit Città Sant'Angelo
Città Sant'Angelo sits on a ridge at 320 meters, fifteen kilometers from Pescara and a clear day's walk from the Adriatic. The Vestini, an Italic Sabine tribe, held this ground before Rome; the medieval town that grew up here was called Castrum Sancti Angeli in the twelfth century and given its current name in 1528.
By then it was one of the three major seats of the Penne-Atri diocese. The Collegiata di San Michele Arcangelo, rebuilt in the thirteenth century, runs forty-seven meters along its portico, the same length as the bell tower is tall.
Its double organ holds 1,218 pipes and was restored in 2023 after nearly sixty years of silence. The Corso Vittorio Emanuele still threads the ridge between olive groves and vineyards, and the town carries four institutional signals at once: Borghi più belli, Cittaslow, Città del Vino, Città dell'Olio.
Few inland communes this close to the coast hold all four.
Rosarubra Zen have been named by a guide.
What to see in Città Sant'Angelo
- Collegiata di San Michele Arcangelo. Thirteenth-century church with a forty-seven meter portico, a 1326 portal, and a double organ of 1,218 pipes restored in 2023.
- Campanile della Collegiata. Bell tower designed by Antonio da Lodi, finished in 1425, the same height as the portico is long.
- Centro storico. Linear medieval ridge town stretched along the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, with palazzi and small churches from the fourteenth to eighteenth centuries.
How to get to Città Sant'Angelo
Pescara is roughly 25 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the months when the ridge feels right. Olive harvest runs late October and the corso fills with mills. July and August push past thirty degrees and the centro storico empties between two and six in the afternoon, though the sea breeze fifteen kilometers east keeps evenings tolerable. Borgo diVino in tour a Città Sant'Angelo falls in June.
Ascoli Piceno
Why visit Ascoli Piceno
Ascoli Piceno sits at 154 meters at the confluence of the Tronto and the Castellano, the historic capital of the Piceni who held this part of the Marche before Rome. The town is built almost entirely from local travertine, which gives the centro storico its luminous pale surface and its mirror behavior under rain: Piazza del Popolo, paved in polished travertine slabs, is one of the most photographed squares in Italy.
In 91 BC the Ascolani killed the Roman delegation in their forum and triggered the Social War; the city was razed and rebuilt by Rome and the present grid still follows the Roman layout. The Quintana, run in costume in July and August, is a joust between the six sestieri, the city districts, the knight on horseback charging an effigy of an Arab warrior.
Anisetta Meletti, the local aniseed liqueur invented in 1907, is poured at the Caffè Meletti on the piazza.
Caffè Meletti, Tetsu have been named by a guide.
What to see in Ascoli Piceno
- Piazza del Popolo. Paved in polished travertine slabs and lined by Renaissance porticoes, the Palazzo dei Capitani and the Loggia dei Mercanti, one of the most photographed squares in Italy.
- Chiesa di San Francesco. Gothic basilica begun in the thirteenth century, three travertine portals, two bell-towers, the largest Marchigiana example of the Franciscan order's architecture.
- Cattedrale di Sant'Emidio. Cathedral on Piazza Arringo, with a fifth-century crypt holding the relics of Sant'Emidio, patron saint invoked against earthquakes.
How to get to Ascoli Piceno
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Pescara is roughly 72 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the best months for Ascoli Piceno. The travertine is dry, the surrounding olive groves turn through the Ascolana tenera harvest from October, and the Tronto and Castellano walks along the city's south edge are open every day. July and August touch the mid-thirties; the centro storico empties between three and six in the afternoon but the Quintana weekends fill it again. Ascoliva Festival falls in August.
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