Abruzzo trip planner

Gran Sasso in the Abruzzo region of Italy. (Photo by Idefix)

Taking a trip to the Abruzzo (Abruzzi) region of Italy

The Abruzzi mountains that form Italy's green spine rise from the plains less than an hour's drive from Rome, yet the peaks are snowcapped year round (and offer quick ski getaways for Romans in winter).

Large swathes of the Abruzzo are covered by one of two vast national parks: the 2,014 km² (777 mi²) Parco Nazionale Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga (www.gransassolagapark.it)—one of the largest protected areas in all of Europe, dominated by the mighty, snow-capped peak of the 2,912-meter (9,554-foot) Gran Sasso massif (deep under which is burrowed one of Europe's top physics laboratories)—and the 496 km² (192 mi²) Parco Nazionale d'Abruzzo (www.parcoabruzzo.it), which is so big it spills over into Lazio and Molise.

So just leave Rome and head into the mountains. Exit off the autostrada (highway) and just meander along the back ways into the heart of the mountains where narrow roads barely wide enough for one car cling to one side of a narrow, twisting canyon 800 feet above the surging waters of a mountain stream.

Featured articles

Santo Stefano in Sessanio, home to Sextantio

Saving Santo Stefano

A village in the Abruzzi Mountains, just two hours east of Rome, has become the poster child for Italy’s albergo diffuso (“diffuse hotel”) movement, preserving a postcard-perfect town by restoring long-abandoned peasant homes where visitors live as temporary residents. This is the albergo diffuso of Sextantio... » more

Campo Imperatore

The Campo Imperatore is a high Alpine plain known locally as a “little Tibet,” its rocky fields sprinkled with lavender, thyme, buttercups, and poppies. The only structures up here are an observatory, a modest little ski resort built in 1920 (and that served as a prison for Mussolini for about a month in the late summer and fall of 1943, before the Nazis rescued him), and roadside shacks that sell meat you grill yourself on the porch and wash down with heavy red wine decanted into giant beer bottles... » more

Rocca di Calascio

Afficinados of 80s movies might recognize the crumbling mountaintop ruins of the Rocca di Calascio—and the whole region of the Gran Sasso national park in the Abruzzi Mountains two hours east of Rome—from the Matthew Broderick-Rutger Hauer-Michelle Pfeiffer film Ladyhawke, or perhaps Sean Connery’s The Name of the Rose ... » more

blog: Babes in the woods - When I was 13 and living in Rome, I was a Boy Scout in Troop 236. Now, a lot of the boys in the troop were diplomat brats, or the children of wealthy folks, and other groups who carry more clout than painting professors—though Dad did have mucho clout when it came to the troop, since he was Scoutmaster. Through the connection of some boy's father, we got permission to go camping one weekend in a national park/nature preserve in the Abruzzi Mountains, a preserve that was normally severly off-limits to the general public... » more