Cittaslow
Cittaslow in Abruzzo
6 towns
Abruzzo holds 6 Cittaslow sites inside our catalogue. They cluster in the Pescara, Teramo, and Chieti provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Città Sant'Angelo, Penne, and Pineto. 3 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
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.
Penne
Province: Pescara · 438 m
The brick city at 438 meters between the Tavo and Fino, ancient capital of the Vestini, rebuilt after Allied bombing and awarded the Silver Medal of Civic Merit.
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.
Controguerra
Province: Teramo · 267 m
A 267-meter hill village whose name is legal shorthand for a small Montepulciano and Trebbiano-Passerina DOC.
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.
Pianella
Province: Pescara · 236 m
A Cittaslow hill town at 236 meters between the Tavo and Pescara rivers, anchor of the Aprutino oil triangle and home of the dritta olive.
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.