Borghi più belli d'Italia
Borghi più belli d'Italia in Abruzzo
22 towns
Abruzzo carries 22 of the Borghi più belli d'Italia towns we cover. They cluster in the L'Aquila, Chieti, and Pescara provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Scanno, Caramanico Terme, and Città Sant'Angelo. 19 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
Scanno
Province: L'Aquila · 1,057 m
A 1,057-meter Sagittario valley village photographed by Cartier-Bresson and Giacomelli, where women in black still walk the same alleys as the 1957 series.
Caramanico Terme
Province: Pescara · 650 m
A 650-meter Majella spa village at the confluence of the Orfento and Orta, with sulphurous springs whose properties were documented in 1576.
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.
Civitella del Tronto
Province: Teramo · 589 m
A rocky crest at 589 meters above the Tronto valley, crowned by the last Bourbon fortress to surrender to united Italy in March 1861.
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.
Pescocostanzo
Province: L'Aquila · 1,395 m
A planned Renaissance town at 1,395 meters on the Quarto Grande plateau, with bobbin lace, wrought iron, and the wood ceilings of a five-nave church.
Pettorano sul Gizio
Province: L'Aquila · 656 m
At 656 meters above the Gizio river, a Cantelmo fortress town that guarded the gateway to the Peligna valley for four hundred years.
Pretoro
Province: Chieti · 530 m
A village of 856 stacked at 530 meters on the eastern Maiella, with wolves in a fenced enclosure and woodturners still working on Via Roma.
Casoli
Province: Chieti · 378 m
A 378-meter hill town above the Aventino under the Maiella, with a pentagonal Norman tower where Gabriele D'Annunzio held a Renaissance court of artists.
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.
Pacentro
Province: L'Aquila · 650 m
A medieval village at 650 meters under the Caldora castle towers, where every September a barefoot race honors a Madonna and a pop singer's grandparents.
Pietracamela
Province: Teramo · 1,005 m
A village of 218 people clinging at 1,005 meters under the north wall of Corno Piccolo, birthplace of Italian Apennine climbing in 1925.
Villalago
Province: L'Aquila · 930 m
A 930-meter village above three lakes, named for the nine that once filled the valley, with a hermit's cave on the water's edge.
Anversa degli Abruzzi
Province: L'Aquila · 604 m
At 604 meters above the Sagittario Gorges, the cliff village where D'Annunzio set La Fiaccola sotto il moggio in 1905.
Campli
Province: Teramo · 393 m
A 393-meter town under the Monti della Laga, held by the Farnese for two centuries, with a Scala Santa carrying papal indulgence.
Castel del Monte
Province: L'Aquila · 1,346 m
At 1,346 meters under Monte Bolza facing Rocca Calascio, the capital of shepherds, whose wool reached the Medici and whose witches return each August.
Crecchio
Province: Chieti · 209 m
A 209-meter hill town between the Adriatic and the Maiella, capital of Italy for one night in 1943 when the king slept in its castle.
Rocca San Giovanni
Province: Chieti · 155 m
A walled hill town at 155 meters on the Costa dei Trabocchi, founded around 1060 by an abbot guarding the Abbey of San Giovanni in Venere.
Santo Stefano di Sessanio
Province: L'Aquila · 1,250 m
A Medici outpost at 1,250 meters on the southern edge of Campo Imperatore, restored building by building since 1999 into Italy's first scattered hotel.
Tagliacozzo
Province: L'Aquila · 740 m
A Marsica town at 740 meters below Monte Civita, where Charles of Anjou won the 1268 battle and the Orsini built the ducal palace.
Introdacqua
Province: L'Aquila · 670 m
At 670 meters in the Valle Peligna, the spring-fed village whose Latin name means inside the waters, now a magnet for foreign residents.
Navelli
Province: L'Aquila · 760 m
At 760 meters above the Navelli plain, the pyramid of stone houses growing the saffron a 13th-century Dominican brought from Spain.
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From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Putignano
Province: Bari
Europe's longest-running carnival — Putignano Carnevale has run continuously since 1394, with 631 years of cartapesta papier-mâché floats, a 26,000-resident Murgia town on the Bari–Lecce plateau, and the Grotta del Trullo karst cave inside the centro.
Pistoia
Province: Pistoia
Italy's nursery capital and the medieval Tuscan rival that gave its name to the pistol — a quietly extraordinary centro storico of zebra-striped Romanesque churches, Andrea della Robbia's polychrome frieze on the Ospedale del Ceppo, and Italy's Capital of Culture 2017, all 30 minutes from Florence by train.
Tropea
Province: Vibo Valentia
Cliff town on a tufa headland over the Tyrrhenian Coast of the Gods, with a Norman monastery on a sea rock.
Caldes
Province: Trento
A scattered Val di Sole commune on the Noce, six hamlets gathered around a thirteenth-century tower-house castle that once belonged to the Thun family.
Cantiano
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
A border borgo at 374 meters under Monte Catria on the old Via Flaminia, known for the Good Friday Turba and the sour-cherry visciola harvest.