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00 Silvi
Stemma di Silvi

Abruzzo · Teramo

Silvi

A split town on the Teramo coast, medieval Silvi Paese above a nine-kilometer beach that built itself on licorice in the 1930s.

Best time
May–Sep
By car
26 min from Pescara
By train
Station in the comune
Population
15,361

Known for

  • BANDIERA BLU

    Nine kilometers of Adriatic beach awarded the Bandiera Blu since 2008 for water quality and beach management.

  • TORRE DEL CERRANO

    Anchor of Abruzzo's first marine protected area, a 1568 Spanish watchtower now ringed by the region's last intact dunes.

  • LICORICE

    Home of Saila Liquirizia since 1937, the factory built inside a converted Kursaal theater on the Silvi Marina seafront.

  • PRETUZIANO DELLE COLLINE TERAMANE

    The commune lies inside the Pretuziano delle Colline Teramane DOP production zone.

When to visit

Best · May–Sep

  • J10°
  • F12°
  • M13°
  • A16°
  • M20°
  • J25°
  • J29°
  • A29°
  • S24°
  • O20°
  • N15°
  • D12°
  • Best
  • Hot or crowded
  • Quiet
  • Mostly closed

Daytime averages, 2020–2024. The sea is warmest in August at 29° and coldest in February at 11°. Weather data by Open-Meteo.com.

Why come

Silvi is two places held together by a hill. The upper town sits on a ridge above the water, known as Castrum Silvi in the Middle Ages and as Matrinum in earlier times. The lower town, a fishing strip until 1931, took over as municipal seat that year and turned the coast into a summer resort, so the newer half now outranks the older one administratively even as the older half keeps the name's origin.

The two halves run on industries that have nothing to do with each other and never did: one bottled its economy in licorice from a converted theater in the 1930s, the other guards a stretch of protected sea and dune around a sixteenth-century watchtower. Pescara is fifteen kilometers south. What holds the town together is not a shared trade but the hill itself, the thing that separates the medieval ridge from the resort strip below and forces the place to be read as two settlements rather than one.

The Sunday letter

Silvi 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 Silvi comes up. By Peter & Sophia, from Turin.

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Read on

Silvi in our articles

How to get there

From Ancona / Pescara (AOI), about 1h 51m by car.

Rimini (RMI) is about 3 hours away.

By car from the centre of Pescara 26 minutes, Ancona 1h 46m or Rome 2h 26m.

There is a railway station in the comune, so you can arrive without a car.

Coming from Rome?

Coming by train into Pescara Centrale? Silvi is about 24 minutes away by road.

Every town within reach of Ancona / Pescara airport.

Silvi, photo 1
Silvi, photo 2

What to see

  • Silvi Paese

    Stone alleys along a ridge, the old Castrum Silvi, with the coastline visible the length of the walk.

  • Torre del Cerrano

    The watchtower stands alone on the sand between the two towns, squat and stone, with the reserve's dune scrub pressing up against its base.

  • Area Marina Protetta Torre del Cerrano

    The first marine protected area in Abruzzo, established in 2010, covering a seven-kilometer stretch of coastline with intact dunes.

  • Spiaggia di Silvi Marina

    A long flat run of sand backed by resort hotels, the Bandiera Blu waters shallow enough near shore to walk out a good distance before the depth changes.

  • Saila Liquirizia

    The old Kursaal theater still stands as the factory shell, its stage-and-balcony bones visible under the machinery, now run by LEAF Italia.

The slow-trip planner

Building a trip? Find where Silvi 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.

Plan your trip

Living here

  • Population 15,361, down 0.2% since 2015
  • Commuter belti
  • Pharmacy in town
  • High school within a 30-minute drive
  • Train station in the comune
  • Nearest public hospital Atri, 10 km as the crow flies
  • Full fibre reaches 98% of homes
  • Primary school in the comune
  • Earthquake zone 2, medium hazard
  • Nearest airport Ancona / Pescara, 1 h 51 min drive
  • Regional capital L'Aquila, 1 h 26 min drive

Could you live here?

Silvi meets 2 of our 2 rules for a small town.

  • 15,361 people, inside our sweet spot of 5,000 to 20,000: a real town, still one community.
  • Montesilvano, a city of 53,275, is 19 minutes by car. Closer than our 30 to 60 minutes: handy for everything, so check the town still keeps a life of its own.
  • A station of its own. Trains are the overlooked way to get around Italy: no parking, straight into the centre.

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 Silvi known for?
Silvi is a split town on the Teramo coast, medieval Silvi Paese at 242 meters above a nine-kilometer beach that built itself on licorice in the 1930s.
Where is Silvi?
Silvi is a comune in the province of Teramo, in Abruzzo.
What is the nearest airport to Silvi?
Ancona / Pescara (AOI), about 1h 51m by car.
Can you get to Silvi without a car?
Yes. There is a railway station in the comune, so you can arrive by train.
How long is the drive from Pescara to Silvi?
About 26 minutes by car.
When is the best time to visit Silvi?
Best in May–Sep. July is the warmest month, averaging 29 degrees, and November the wettest, with about 11 rain days.
Which other towns are like Silvi?
Alba Adriatica, Giulianova and Mondolfo.
How many people live in Silvi?
15,361 at the 2023 count.
Is Silvi a good place to live?
By the rules in our Where to Move in Italy series, Silvi is a small town that meets 2 of our 2 rules. The nearest city, Montesilvano, is 19 minutes away by car. The nearest public hospital is in Atri, 10 km as the crow flies. Full fibre reaches 98% of homes.
Tags & datadesignations · numbers · sources

The numbers

  • Elevation: 242 m
  • Population: 15,361
  • Surface area: 20.63 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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