Casoli

Casoli occupies a steep isolated hill on the eastern flank of the Maiella, above the Aventino, a tributary of the Sangro. The tower at the summit was raised in the 12th century as a refuge for the inhabitants of the Roman town of Cluviae, when Saracens raided up the valley. Around it grew the Castello Ducale, passed in turn from the Orsini in the 14th and 15th centuries to the Colonna, Carafa, Crispano and Filomarino, and finally to the d'Aquino, who became Dukes of Casoli in 1645.

In 1900 the castle passed to a lawyer and parliamentarian from a local family, who hosted Gabriele D'Annunzio there along with Francesco Paolo Tosti, Francesco Paolo Michetti, Edoardo Scarfoglio, Matilde Serao and Guglielmo Marconi, in a gathering of artists and intellectuals around 1900-1910. The castle was sold to the municipality in 1982. Outside the town, the Aventino was dammed in 1958 to form Lago di Casoli. The town's shape still traces this history: a defensive tower grown into a ducal seat, a steep medieval core climbing toward it, and a river valley below that has been fought over, painted, written about and, eventually, dammed.

From Ancona / Pescara (AOI), about 2h 36m by car.

Bari / Brindisi (BRI) is about 3 hours away.

By car from the centre of Pescara 58 minutes, Ancona 2h 33m or Rome 2h 40m.

Coming by train into Pescara Centrale? Casoli is about 1 hour away by road.