Every city in Abruzzo | Italia Magnifica

Every city in Abruzzo

From the capital to the smallest borghi.

L'AquilaThe capitalAbruzzo's mountain capital, founded by legend from ninety-nine castles, still counts its emblems in ninety-nines: the Fountain of the 99 Spouts murmurs through its masked court, while the Basilica of Collemaggio raises its pink-and-white checkerboard facade, patiently rebuilt since the great earthquake.
AtriAn ancient hill town overlooking the eroded clay ravines known as calanchi, Atri is crowned by a Romanesque cathedral whose choir holds Andrea De Litio's vast fresco cycle, often called the Sistine Chapel of Abruzzo.
CalascioAbove this tiny village stands Rocca Calascio, one of Italy's highest fortresses at 1,460 metres, its ruined towers and the lonely octagonal chapel of Santa Maria della Pieta surveying the Gran Sasso. The film Ladyhawke was shot among its stones.
CastelliTucked beneath the sheer eastern walls of the Gran Sasso, this small mountain village has shaped and painted maiolica ceramics for centuries, its kilns producing the prized Castelli ware still made and sold in workshops along its lanes.
ChietiOne of Italy's oldest cities, spread along a ridge above the Pescara valley, Chieti is best known for the National Archaeological Museum of Abruzzo, whose Villa Frigerj rooms hold the Warrior of Capestrano, a sixth-century-BC funerary colossus in his wide disk helmet.
Civitella del TrontoStrung along a high rocky ridge near the Marche border, this borgo is dominated by the Fortress of Civitella del Tronto, among the largest in Italy. The last Bourbon stronghold to fall, it surrendered only in 1861, and now shelters a museum of arms.
FossacesiaOn the Costa dei Trabocchi, where timber fishing platforms reach out over the Adriatic, Fossacesia is best known for the abbey of San Giovanni in Venere, a Romanesque-Gothic church set among olive groves above the sea.
PescaraAbruzzo's largest city and liveliest beach resort, Pescara stretches a long sweep of Adriatic sand behind a busy waterfront. It was the birthplace of the poet Gabriele d'Annunzio, whose restored childhood home survives as a museum of the old town.
RoccarasoHigh in the Alto Sangro, Roccaraso is the best-known ski resort of the central Apennines, its slopes among the most extensive south of the Alps. In summer the same heights become walking country, ringed by beech woods and open pasture.
San Vito ChietinoA small clifftop town on the Costa dei Trabocchi, San Vito Chietino looks down on the wooden trabocchi piers that gave the coast its name. Nearby stood the hermitage where Gabriele d'Annunzio retreated and set one of his novels.
Santo Stefano di SessanioA Medici mountain borgo on the Gran Sasso's flank, its stone lanes and tower brought back to life as an albergo diffuso, with rooms scattered through restored medieval houses. Below, terraces still grow the prized local lentils.
ScannoReached through the narrow Sagittario gorges, this medieval village looks down on Lake Scanno, a heart-shaped basin born of an ancient landslide. The lanes are famous too for the elaborate traditional dress still worn by some of the women.
SulmonaThe birthplace of the poet Ovid, set in the broad Peligna valley, Sulmona is the world's capital of confetti, the sugared almonds bundled here into intricate flowers. On the Morrone slopes above clings the cliff hermitage of Sant'Onofrio, the retreat of the hermit-pope Celestine V.
TeramoSet between the Gran Sasso and the Adriatic at the meeting of two rivers, Teramo is the unhurried provincial seat of northern Abruzzo, layering a Roman theatre and amphitheatre beneath its old streets and a medieval cathedral at its heart.