Guide
Distances and times computed on the real road route. Hours and prices verified at source, with the check date on every entry.
Where to start
Each itinerary groups places that sit close together, with the time they actually take. Click a stop to jump to its entry.
Leave after breakfast, be back for lunch. Six kilometres of road, then you walk on original Roman paving.
Tagliacozzo in the morning, lunch under the arcades, Celano in the afternoon for the castle and museum.
The Celano Gorges take about four hours. Shoes that can get wet, packed lunch.
Out at eight, ski until afternoon, shop on the way back, dinner at home.
Two underground works separated by two thousand years: a Roman tunnel and a karst cave.
What you can reach on foot from the front door.
The map
The numbers on the pins match the list below. The black dot is the house.
21 places on the map, with real distances and times.
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Click inside the map to zoom with the wheel. Hovering an entry highlights its pin.
The list
Use the filters above the map to narrow the list. Each entry says how you get in, what it costs, how long it takes and which season makes sense.
21 places shown
Mountains
A loop of roughly one hundred kilometres over seven days between the Marsica and the Cicolano, on the trail of the Cartore brigand band. Since 2022 a waymarked variant brings the route through Massa d'Albe and Alba Fucens. Walkers arrive with a pack and leave the next morning.
History
A memorial in the village, with a Second World War cannon and the chapel dedicated to the Alpini. Reachable on foot from the house and a good spot from which to look over the Fucino plain.
Table
The village has a couple of bars, a bakery, a small grocery and a butcher. Enough for breakfast, bread, meat and a quick shop without taking the car. For a full shop, Avezzano is the place.
Reduced hours on Sunday and in the early afternoon.
Mountains
The mountain stands behind the house and you see it whole from the yard, snow-covered from November to May. The summit reaches 2,487 m. Below it, the Monte Velino Nature Reserve protects old beech woods and wildlife that survives in few other Italian places: Apennine chamois, golden eagle, wolf. The classic ascent starts at the Piani di Pezza and passes Rifugio Vincenzo Sebastiani.
Above 2,000 m in winter you need crampons, an ice axe and experience. Weather turns fast and phone coverage at altitude is not guaranteed.
History
On 8 June 1795 lightning passed through the parish church of Corona without causing damage. A single painting fell and beneath the plaster a fresco of the Madonna appeared. The sanctuary, rebuilt after the 1915 earthquake, draws pilgrims every 8 June.
A small hamlet church: it is not open continuously. The feast day is 8 June.
Table
The largest and best-stocked village along the Cammino dei Briganti, minutes away by car. Trattorias, pizzerias and farm restaurants serving arrosticini, sagne pasta and pasture cheeses.
Booking is advisable at weekends and in high season.
History
Rome founded it in 303 BC as a Latin colony, on a plateau at a thousand metres ringed by polygonal walls. The first-century amphitheatre survives, along with the baths, the macellum, the basilica and the paving of the Via del Miliario, cart ruts still legible. Above the site, the Romanesque church of San Pietro rests on the podium of the temple of Apollo and keeps its Cosmatesque ambo and iconostasis.
The archaeological area is free all year. Summer performances in the amphitheatre are ticketed separately. At a thousand metres the wind blows even in August.
Mountains
A protected area managed by the Forestry Carabinieri, with a visitor centre and wildlife enclosure at Magliano de' Marsi. One of the few places in Italy where spotting an Apennine chamois is realistic, best at dawn and dusk in autumn.
Check the visitor centre hours before setting off: they change with the season.
Services
On the Tiburtina Valeria in Avezzano, opened in 2008: 18,000 square metres, an Ipercoop hypermarket and 38 shops, 1,300 parking spaces of which 800 covered. This is where you do the big shop and buy what the village does not stock.
Free and accessible parking. Individual shop hours vary.
Services
SS. Filippo e Nicola hospital with A&E, out-of-hours doctor, duty pharmacies, the railway station on the Rome-Pescara line and 24-hour fuel stations.
For emergencies call 112, the single European number.
History
The main town of the Marsica was levelled by the 1915 earthquake and rebuilt from nothing. The fifteenth-century castle of the Orsini, later the Colonna, is one of the few surviving buildings and hosts exhibitions. It is also the practical hub of the area: hospital, station, shops.
Castle opening depends on current exhibitions. Market on Saturday.
History
The most imposing hydraulic work of the Roman world after the aqueducts of Rome. Between AD 41 and 52 the emperor Claudius had a six-kilometre tunnel dug under Monte Salviano to drain Lake Fucino. The guided route enters the Ferraro gallery.
Booking is compulsory. Non-slip shoes needed; the helmet is provided. Openings are limited to a few dates a year: call before planning your day.
History
Piazza dell'Obelisco with its arcaded houses and the Colonna Ducal Palace form one of the best-preserved medieval centres in Abruzzo. In 1268 Conradin of Swabia and Charles of Anjou clashed here. In summer the Midsummer Festival brings theatre and music to the square.
A good choice for dinner out. The festival programme comes out in spring.
History
Built between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and restored after the 1915 earthquake, it dominates the whole Fucino basin. Inside are the Marsica Museum of Sacred Art and the Torlonia Collection of Fucino antiquities: triptychs, wooden sculpture, goldsmithery and finds recovered when the lake was drained.
Closed on Mondays. Pairs well with the Celano Gorges in the same day.
Mountains
A karst system in the municipality of Cappadocia, on provincial road 23 towards Petrella Liri, named after the Roman noblewoman executed in 1599. Stalactites, stalagmites and finds ranging from the Neolithic to Roman times. There is no fixed lighting inside: you go down with torches handed out by the guides, the way a caver would.
Entry only with a guide. Outside opening days it is by booking, minimum four people. The route is wheelchair accessible. Constant low temperature: bring a layer.
Snow
The largest ski area in the Marsica: 21 runs over some 30 kilometres, served by 11 lifts including an eight-seat gondola, two six-seat chairlifts and three three-seaters. Snowmaking covers much of the terrain. Ski school and rental on site. In summer it becomes a bike park and a gateway to the Sirente-Velino range.
Opening dates depend on snow and are announced on the resort website. Check before setting off.
Mountains
A karst plateau at about 1,450 m between the Velino and the Sirente. In summer free-roaming horses graze here; in winter it turns into cross-country ski and snowshoe terrain. The climb to Rifugio Sebastiani and on to the Velino summit starts here.
In winter the access road can be closed beyond a certain point because of snow.
Mountains
A hamlet at 1,400 m on Monte Bove, inside a beech wood. The ski lifts have been out of service for years: there is no downhill skiing here. It remains a good place for winter snowshoeing, sledging on the meadows and woodland walks in summer.
The lifts are closed: for downhill skiing go to Ovindoli or Campo Felice.
Mountains
Five kilometres of gorge between vertical walls that narrow to a few metres in places. No technical difficulty, but you ford water several times. It stays cool even in August.
Avoid after heavy rain. Bring shoes that can get wet.
History
Since 2017 Aielli has been an open-air museum: over fifty murals, sculptures and installations through the alleys, all tied to the sky. Its centre is the Torre delle Stelle, a fourteenth-century tower turned observatory and astronomical library, with a planetarium, solar observation by day and stars and planets by night.
The murals are always visible. Guided tours and the tower must be booked on the festival website.
Snow
On the Altopiano delle Rocche, beyond Ovindoli: wide sunny runs, busy with visitors from Rome at weekends. A link to Monte Magnola into a single ski area has been discussed for years; it is not yet in operation.
On peak-season weekends, arrive early for parking.
Dedicated guides
The stage through the village
The Roman town six kilometres away
Trails, mountain hut, seasons
Ovindoli and Campo Felice
What people eat in the Marsica
Shopping, health, fuel
Further out
Beyond thirty kilometres, within reach of a day trip. What we suggest to anyone staying more than three nights.
Four beds in Massa d’Albe, parking at the door, and the same places in a printed guide inside the house.
