For foodies
Where to eat well in Abruzzo
22 towns
Towns holding at least one place a guide put its name to. The ones several guides agree on come first.
Castel di Sangro
Province: L'Aquila · 805 m
At 805 meters where the Sangro meets the Zittola, a Samnite-Roman town whose amateur football club reached Serie B and whose hilltop was fought over in 1943.
Guardiagrele
Province: Chieti · 576 m
The 576-meter terrazza d'Abruzzo on the Majella's foothills, hometown of fifteenth-century goldsmith Nicola da Guardiagrele and seat of the Majella park.
Giulianova
Province: Teramo · 68 m
Coastal town split between hilltop Paese at 68 meters and the Lido below, one rebuilt as a Renaissance ideal city, the other grown around a working fishing fleet.
Roseto degli Abruzzi
Province: Teramo · 8 m
An Adriatic beach town of 25,500 with ten kilometers of low-rise sand, a hilltop frazione at 285 meters, and Blue Flags since 1995.
Pacentro
Province: L'Aquila · 650 m
A medieval village at 650 meters under the Caldora castle towers, where every September a barefoot race honors a Madonna and a pop singer's grandparents.
Roccaraso
Province: L'Aquila · 1,236 m
At 1,236 meters, the south of Italy's largest ski resort, leveled in 1943 and rebuilt from rubble.
Sulmona
Province: L'Aquila · 405 m
At 405 meters in the Valle Peligna, birthplace of Ovid in 43 BC and home of the sugared-almond confetti industry since the 14th century.
Pineto
Province: Teramo · 4 m
A planned twentieth-century beach town named for D'Annunzio's poem, with the sixteenth-century Cerrano tower anchoring Abruzzo's first marine protected area.
Alba Adriatica
Province: Teramo · 5 m
The northernmost of the Teramo coast's seven sisters, a 1956 spin-off from Tortoreto with a fine-sand beach known as the Spiaggia d'Argento.
Carsoli
Province: L'Aquila · 616 m
A 616-meter mountain town in the Marsica, built next to the ruins of a 4th-century BC Roman fortress town.
Pescocostanzo
Province: L'Aquila · 1,395 m
A planned Renaissance town at 1,395 meters on the Quarto Grande plateau, with bobbin lace, wrought iron, and the wood ceilings of a five-nave church.
Loreto Aprutino
Province: Pescara · 290 m
A hilltop town at 290 meters in the Aprutino olive country, with a fourteenth-century Judgment fresco and a Castelli majolica collection.
Vasto
Province: Chieti · 144 m
At 144 meters on a hill above the Adriatic, Vasto is home of the brodetto vastese, invented in 1800.
L'Aquila
Province: L'Aquila · 721 m
The regional capital at 721 meters, founded by Frederick II around 1240 and still reconstructing after the 2009 earthquake.
Ortona
Province: Chieti · 72 m
A working Adriatic port under an Aragonese castle, where the cathedral holds relics venerated as those of the apostle Thomas and the ridge above the harbour was fought over street by street in December 1943.
Ovindoli
Province: L'Aquila · 1,375 m
At 1,375 meters on the Altopiano delle Rocche, the closest serious ski station to Rome, working since 1959 on the slopes of Monte Magnola.
Atri
Province: Teramo · 442 m
At 442 meters on three hills ten kilometers from the Adriatic, ancient Hadria, source of the emperor Hadrian's family name and the Adriatic's.
Caramanico Terme
Province: Pescara · 650 m
A 650-meter Majella spa village at the confluence of the Orfento and Orta rivers.
Città Sant'Angelo
Province: Pescara · 320 m
A hilltop borgo at 320 meters between the Vestina hills and the Adriatic, named for the Archangel and known since 1352 as a Collegiata seat.
Rivisondoli
Province: L'Aquila · 1,320 m
At 1,320 meters on the Cinque Miglia plateau, a village known for its Epiphany living nativity.
Rocca San Giovanni
Province: Chieti · 155 m
A walled hill town at 155 meters, founded around 1060 by an abbot guarding the Abbey of San Giovanni in Venere.
Scanno
Province: L'Aquila · 1,057 m
A 1,057-meter Sagittario valley village where women in black still walk the alleys photographed by Cartier-Bresson and Giacomelli.
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From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Visso
Province: Macerata
The northern Sibillini gate at 607 meters where the Nera meets the Ussita, holding one of two surviving manuscripts of Leopardi's L'Infinito.
Goriano Sicoli
Province: L'Aquila
At 720 meters in the Subequana valley, a medieval village drawn by M.C. Escher in 1929 keeps a May ritual folklorists trace to Demeter.
Ugento
Province: Lecce
A Messapian-Roman town five kilometers from the Ionian, where a Baroque castle sits on the walls of the ancient city of Ozan.
Fontanellato
Province: Parma
A Parma-plain town built around the Rocca Sanvitale, the moated fortress at its center.
Pescina
Province: L'Aquila
A Marsica town at 735 meters, on the rim of the drained Fucino basin, that lost five thousand of six thousand people in a single morning in 1915.