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00 Fara San Martino
Stemma di Fara San Martino

Abruzzo · Chieti

Fara San Martino

A pasta-making town, where the Verde river runs out of a two-meter slot in the Majella wall.

Best time
Apr–Oct
By car
2 h 23 min from Pescara
Population
1,289

Known for

  • PASTA

    De Cecco founded here in 1886, Delverde and Cocco still in operation; the town is called the world capital of dry pasta.

  • GOLE DI SAN MARTINO

    Two-meter slot gorge cut into the Majella wall, with the Verde river running out at its base and the abbey ruins inside.

  • MAJELLA NATIONAL PARK

    The eastern gateway into Majella park, with trails climbing 2,300 meters from the gorge to Monte Amaro's summit.

When to visit

Best · Apr–Oct

  • J10°
  • F13°
  • M13°
  • A16°
  • M21°
  • J26°
  • J29°
  • A29°
  • S24°
  • O20°
  • N15°
  • D12°
  • Best
  • Hot or crowded
  • Quiet
  • Mostly closed

Daytime averages, 2020–2024. Weather data by Open-Meteo.com.

The festa: Antonio di Padova, 24 August

Why come

The name is Lombard: Fara meant a settled clan, and San Martino was added for the Benedictine abbey walled into the gorge above the village. The town sits on the eastern slopes of the Majella, the borgo built on the slope below the rock and the gorge cutting up behind it into the Valle Santo Spirito, which rises toward Monte Amaro. Upper valley and lower town are joined by the same water: the Verde emerges from the karst springs at the gorge's foot and has run the pasta mills along the river since the nineteenth century, Delverde arriving in 1967 and Cocco still shipping from the same valley today. A geography this narrow, a river this cold, and a name carried by a Lombard clan and a buried abbey: the town reads as a single system where the rock, the water and the work in the valley below are the same story told from different ends.

The Sunday letter

Fara San Martino is on our list. Its letter is still to come.

We are writing about all 1,000 of these towns, one at a time, in a free letter every Sunday: the photo, the food, the festa. That is our mission. Sign up and you will be there when Fara San Martino comes up. By Peter & Sophia, from Turin.

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Read on

Fara San Martino in our articles

How to get there

From Ancona / Pescara (AOI), about 4 hours by car.

Naples / Salerno (NAP) is about 4h 22m away.

By car from the centre of Pescara 2h 23m, Ancona 4 hours or Rome 4 hours.

Fara San Martino, photo 1
Fara San Martino, photo 2

What to see

  • Gole di San Martino

    Walking from the borgo into the gorge takes ten minutes and drops the temperature by five degrees, the rock walls closing to the two-meter slot at the narrowest point.

  • Monastero di San Martino in Valle

    Abbey ruins walled into the gorge above the village, buried by the 1818 flood and dug out again from 2009 onward.

  • Valle Santo Spirito

    Long Apennine valley rising from the gorge toward Monte Amaro, the second-highest peak in the central Apennines.

  • Centro storico

    Small medieval borgo of stone houses on the slope, with the Chiesa di San Remigio as the parish church and pasta mills along the river.

  • Sorgenti del Verde

    Karst springs at the foot of the gorge, the cold water source that De Cecco, Delverde and Cocco have used since 1886.

The slow-trip planner

Building a trip? Find where Fara San Martino fits in a slow Italy circuit.

Answer five questions. We will shape a geographically coherent slow trip from the 1,000 Italian towns most travelers skip. Yours to save and share.

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Living here

  • Population 1,289, down 13.1% since 2015 (Italy's emptying towns)
  • Remotei
  • Pharmacy in town
  • Nearest high school over ~30 minutes away
  • Nearest public hospital Sulmona, 19 km as the crow flies
  • Full fibre reaches 99% of homes
  • Primary school in the comune
  • Earthquake zone 1, Italy's highest hazard
  • Nearest airport Ancona / Pescara, 4 h 4 min drive
  • Regional capital L'Aquila, 3 h 30 min drive

Could you live here?

Fara San Martino is at the end of the road.

  • A village of 1,289. The nearest town of 5,000 people, Casoli, is 1 h 40 min away: past our 15-minute rule, which makes this the end of the road.
  • Chieti, a city of 48,455, is 2 h 8 min by car. Further than our 30 to 60 minutes, a long way for the hospital visit or the monthly shopping.

The rules come from our series Where to Move in Italy, written from the places we have lived: Part 1, The End of the Road · Part 2, The Small Town · Part 3, The City. The rest of the series, and the best towns to move to, arrive in the Sunday letter.

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Common questions

What is Fara San Martino known for?
Fara San Martino is a pasta-making town at 440 meters, where the Verde river runs out of a two-meter slot in the Majella wall.
Where is Fara San Martino?
Fara San Martino is a comune in the province of Chieti, in Abruzzo.
What is the nearest airport to Fara San Martino?
Ancona / Pescara (AOI), about 4 hours by car.
How long is the drive from Pescara to Fara San Martino?
About 2h 23m by car.
When is the best time to visit Fara San Martino?
Best in Apr–Oct. July is the warmest month, averaging 29 degrees, and May the wettest, with about 17 rain days.
Is there a sagra or a festival in Fara San Martino?
The town keeps its patron saint's day: Antonio di Padova, 24 August.
Which other towns are like Fara San Martino?
Archi, Poggiorsini and Aiello Calabro.
How many people live in Fara San Martino?
1,289 at the 2023 count.
Is Fara San Martino a good place to live?
By the rules in our Where to Move in Italy series, Fara San Martino is at the end of the road: the nearest town of 5,000 people, Casoli, is 1 h 40 min away. The nearest city, Chieti, is 2 h 8 min away by car. The nearest public hospital is in Sulmona, 19 km as the crow flies. Full fibre reaches 99% of homes.
Tags & datadesignations · numbers · sources

The numbers

  • Elevation: 440 m
  • Population: 1,289
  • Surface area: 44.69 km²

These figures were compiled from public directories: ISTAT, OpenStreetMap and Wikidata, and from the official listings of the guides named on this page. Town details change; verify with official sources before you travel.

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