Ciao! I’m Luca, born and raised in Pescara. Every time I drive from Rome and the motorway sign announces Abruzzo, I still count down…five, four, three, two, one…and I honk the horn when we cross. My kids tease me about it. I do it even when I’m alone in the car.
So no, I’m not a neutral guide. But I can answer this question with something the listicles written from far away don’t have: a whole life spent here and around here. What is Abruzzo actually known for? Here’s the honest version.
In short: Abruzzo is known for wild mountains and parks (about a third of the region is protected land, home of the Marsican brown bear), for simple and serious food (arrosticini, maccheroni alla chitarra, Montepulciano d’Abruzzo wine), for medieval hill towns like Scanno and castle ruins like Rocca Calascio, for about 130 km of Adriatic coast, sandy for most of its length, and lately for some of the most affordable country houses in Italy. And you cross into it less than an hour after leaving Rome.
Where is Abruzzo?
Right in the middle of Italy, on the Adriatic side. Marche sits to the north, Lazio (and Rome) to the west, Molise to the south, and the sea to the east. Geographically it’s central Italy, on the same latitude as Rome. Historically and statistically it’s often grouped with the south, a leftover of the old Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. We’re used to the confusion.
The line I tell every first-time visitor: this is the only region I know where in half an hour you go from the mountains to the beach. You can ski in the morning and have a seafood dinner or an aperitivo by the sea the same day. That short distance between 2,900-metre peaks and the coast is the whole character of the place.
The four provinces, in one line each
L’Aquila is the regional capital, up in the mountains. It was badly hit by the 2009 earthquake and the rebuilding is still part of the city’s story. Teramo has the Gran Sasso on one side and a string of sandy beach towns on the other. Pescara is the biggest, most modern city, and it’s my hometown. Chieti holds the Trabocchi coast and the Maiella side of the mountains. I’ll be honest with you: Chieti is the province I know least first-hand, because my whole family is rooted on the Pescara side.
Mountains, parks, and bears
If Abruzzo has one calling card abroad, it’s this: they call it the greenest region in Europe, because roughly a third of the territory is protected. Three national parks (Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga, Maiella, and the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise park), one regional park, and dozens of nature reserves.
The Gran Sasso is the giant. Corno Grande, at 2,912 metres, is the highest peak in the whole Apennines, and summiting it a few years ago is still one of my proudest mountain memories. Below it stretches Campo Imperatore, a high plateau so wide and bare that Italians nicknamed it Little Tibet. A cable car climbs from Fonte Cerreto to about 2,130 metres, and it’s back running after a spell of maintenance works.
The oldest of the three, founded in 1922 and mostly in the L’Aquila province, is where the Marsican brown bear survives: a subspecies that exists only here. The first survey of the whole population, published this July, counted 81 of them. The same park holds the Val Cervara beech forest, on UNESCO’s World Heritage list since 2017, with beeches over 560 years old, the oldest in Europe. We grew up thinking all this was normal. It isn’t.
My favourite corner of these mountains is the area around Campo Imperatore and Rocca Calascio. If you only have one day for the high Abruzzo, spend it there.
The food: arrosticini, chitarra pasta, and Montepulciano
Ask any Italian what Abruzzo is known for and they’ll say arrosticini before you finish the question. Thin skewers of sheep meat, grilled over coals, eaten by the dozen with bread and olive oil. The best ones I’ve ever had are at Da Stefano in Conaprato, a tiny place in the countryside between Penne and Farindola. Nothing fancy at all. That’s exactly the point.
Then there’s maccheroni alla chitarra, pasta cut on a wooden frame strung with steel wires like a guitar, and on the coast the brodetto, the fishermen’s stew. Abruzzo cooking is shepherd food and fisherman food that never needed to impress anyone.
The wine is the other big name: Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, our red. I can smell home when I drink it. The whites deserve more attention than they get: Trebbiano, Pecorino, Passerina. And yes, Pecorino is both a cheese and a grape. We like to keep foreigners on their toes.
At the opposite end of the spectrum: Reale, Niko Romito’s three-Michelin-star restaurant, sits inside Casadonna, a restored 16th-century former monastery above Castel di Sangro that also houses ten guest rooms and his cooking academy. Shepherd food at one end, three stars at the other, and in between hundreds of village sagre every summer. My method for those is simple: just plan and go.
The coast: sandy beaches and the trabocchi
Abruzzo has about 130 km of Adriatic coastline. Pescara alone has around 7 km of sandy beach lined with stabilimenti, the private beach clubs that are a whole culture of their own. I worked as a lifeguard on that beach as a teenager, and in my high school years each school had “its” stabilimento…you simply went where your crowd was. For the fun of it, the lively commercial beach of Pescara is still my pick, because it’s where I grew up.
For natural beauty, go south into the Chieti province. The Trabocchi coast is named after the trabocchi, old wooden fishing machines standing on stilts over the water; a number of them now work as seafood restaurants. A 42 km cycle path, the Via Verde, runs along this coast from Ortona to Vasto on a former railway line. And near Vasto there’s Punta Aderci, a nature reserve that is my honest answer when someone asks for the most beautiful stretch of our coast.
Hill towns, castles, and traditions
Abruzzo is a region of small towns on hills, and this is where it wins people over. Scanno has its lake and a women’s traditional costume so distinctive it has its own museum display. Rocca Calascio is a ruined fortress at nearly 1,500 metres that looks invented for the movies, and has in fact appeared in a few. Castelli has been making painted maiolica ceramics for centuries. Sulmona is the birthplace of the poet Ovid and of confetti, the sugared almonds Italians hand out at every wedding. And Penne is the brick hill town where I own a house, so I’m allowed to be partial.
The traditions run deep here. Every late August, L’Aquila holds the Perdonanza Celestiniana, a forgiveness rite that has been repeated since 1294 and entered the UNESCO intangible heritage list in 2019. Across the region you can still trace the tratturi, the wide grass roads shepherds used for centuries to move flocks between Abruzzo and Puglia.
And a few names you might know came from here: Gabriele D’Annunzio, the poet, was born in Pescara in 1863, and so was Ennio Flaiano, who co-wrote La Dolce Vita with Fellini (Pescara’s Premio Flaiano is named after him). Even Dean Martin was the son of a barber who emigrated from Montesilvano, just up the coast from Pescara.
The new thing it’s known for: affordable houses
In the last few years Abruzzo has become known for something else: it’s one of the cheapest places in Italy to buy a country house, an hour and a bit from Rome. Nearly every non-Italian friend who visits me leaves with the same two reactions: shock at how beautiful it is, and shock that nobody had told them.
I did it myself. In 2008 an agent showed me a house in Penne that was literally falling apart. I bought it anyway, because I had a vision, and I rebuilt it exactly as I wanted. It became my shelter every time I came back from living abroad. So when I write about buying here, it’s not theory.
If that side of Abruzzo interests you, start with my guide to houses for sale in Abruzzo, then look at the real cost of Abruzzo for the actual numbers. And if you want a local on your side of the table, you can work with me.
Abruzzo in numbers
- Population: just under 1.3 million
- Area: about 10,800 km², roughly two thirds of it mountains
- Coastline: about 130 km on the Adriatic
- Highest peak: Corno Grande, 2,912 m, the roof of the Apennines
- Protected land: 3 national parks, 1 regional park, and dozens of reserves, about a third of the region
- Provinces: 4 (L’Aquila, Teramo, Pescara, Chieti)
Questions readers ask me
Is Abruzzo in northern or southern Italy?
Geographically it’s central Italy, level with Rome. Statistically and historically it’s counted with the south, because before Italian unification it belonged to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Locals will give you either answer depending on their mood.
What food is Abruzzo famous for?
Arrosticini above all, then maccheroni alla chitarra, brodetto on the coast, and Montepulciano d’Abruzzo wine. Sulmona’s confetti are the famous sweet.
Is Abruzzo worth visiting?
People ask me which places here are overrated, and my honest answer is none: Abruzzo is still to be discovered, and most of it is underrated. If you want the full case, I made it in 15 reasons to visit Abruzzo. The one mistake to avoid: underestimating how big the region is and trying to day-trip everywhere from one base. Feasible, but tiring.
Do I need a car in Abruzzo?
For the coast, no: the railway line runs along it and connects the beach towns. For the mountains and the hill towns, realistically yes. Buses exist but they run on village time.
How far is Abruzzo from Rome?
You cross the regional border less than an hour after leaving Rome on the A24 or A25 motorway. Rome to Pescara, coast to coast, is about two hours by car, and the direct buses take roughly the same. The train is the slow option here: count on three and a half hours at best. I do the drive constantly, sometimes just for one lunch or a walk.
So, when are you coming?
That’s what Abruzzo is known for, at least according to someone who was born here and never stopped coming back, no matter where life took me. If this made you curious, the next question is when to come. My personal answer is spring, but every season has its argument, and I wrote them all down in my guide to the best time to visit Abruzzo.
Ci vediamo presto in Abruzzo…see you soon!
