Riserva Naturale
Riserva Naturale in Abruzzo
23 towns
Abruzzo has 23 Riserva Naturale communes in our index. They cluster in the L'Aquila, Chieti, and Pescara provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Scanno, Caramanico Terme, and Fara San Martino. 20 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.
Fara San Martino
Province: Chieti · 440 m
The pasta capital of Italy at 440 meters, where De Cecco was founded in 1886 and the Verde river runs out of a two-meter slot in the Majella wall.
Lama dei Peligni
Province: Chieti · 669 m
A 669-meter Majella village known for chamois, the Cavallone cave, and a prehistoric burial dug from Fonterossi dated 7000 to 5000 BC.
Sante Marie
Province: L'Aquila · 950 m
A 950-meter Marsica village and the trailhead of the Cammino dei Briganti, the seven-day brigand trail through the Cartore band's territory.
Barrea
Province: L'Aquila · 1,066 m
A 1,066-meter spur above an artificial lake at the heart of the Abruzzo National Park, with a Samnite necropolis and an 11th-century di Sangro castle.
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.
L'Aquila
Province: L'Aquila · 721 m
The regional capital at 721 meters under the Gran Sasso, founded by Frederick II around 1240 and still reconstructing after the 2009 earthquake.
Ofena
Province: L'Aquila · 531 m
A 531-meter Vestian basin called the Forno d'Abruzzo, sealed by the Gran Sasso wall, where Montepulciano ripens on what may be the oldest of its slopes.
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.
Tocco da Casauria
Province: Pescara · 356 m
A 356-meter hill town between the Pescara river and the Maiella, built around a Carolingian abbey and an herb liqueur called Centerba.
Carsoli
Province: L'Aquila · 616 m
A 616-meter mountain town in the Marsica, built next to the ruins of Roman Carsioli, the 4th-century BC fortress on the road to Alba Fucens.
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.
Civitella Alfedena
Province: L'Aquila · 1,123 m
At 1,123 meters above Lake Barrea, 285 residents, the trailhead for the Camosciara reserve and home of the Apennine Wolf Museum.
Corfinio
Province: L'Aquila · 346 m
A village of under a thousand on the Peligna valley floor at 346 meters, sitting on the Italic League's would-be capital Italia.
Morino
Province: L'Aquila · 440 m
A village at 440 meters in the Val Roveto on the Lazio border, beneath the central Apennines' second-highest waterfall at over 80 meters.
Roccamorice
Province: Pescara · 520 m
A village at 520 meters in the Majella foothills, gateway to the rock-cut hermitages where Pietro da Morrone lived before becoming Pope Celestine V.
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.
Atri
Province: Teramo · 442 m
At 442 meters on three hills ten kilometers from the Adriatic, ancient Hadria, source of the emperor Hadrian's family name and the Adriatic's.
Vasto
Province: Chieti · 144 m
At 144 meters on a hill above the Adriatic, southern anchor of the Costa dei Trabocchi, home of the brodetto vastese invented in 1800.
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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.