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I am Abruzzese. The blood of Abruzzo runs through my veins. My grandparents grew up in Pettorano Sul Gizio (photo above and below), a small town in the center of a protected reserve. When I obtained my Italian citizenship, I established my residency in Carunchio, another small town in Abruzzo, to maintain the connection. When someone tells me that...

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Coming to L'Aquila has a bittersweet taste. It's not an experience that leaves one indifferent. Indeed, it's not the same as travelling in any other Italian art city. The reference, of course, is to the 2009 earthquake, whose wounds are still very visible today. However, visiting L'Aquila at this particular moment also means witnessing beauty flour...

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If you’re planning a trip through Europe, don’t forget to consider these Italian villages. “To visit them is to participate in Italy’s beauty while helping keep these enchanting places alive,” says Fiorello Primi, president of the “Most Beautiful Villages in Italy” association (I Borghi più belli d’Italia). While you know Rome, Florence, or Milan,...

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Abruzzo boasts a coastline dotted with small pearls to be discovered, among which stands out the village Martinsicuro. Let’s get to know him better! In the heart of Edenica Val Vibrata rises Martinsicuro, a village bordering Monteprandone and San Benedetto del Tronto to to the north, with Colonnella to the west and the Adriatic to the east. How to...

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This summer, nine Vespisti of the Vespa Committee of Washington, DC, led by AMHS member Willy Meaux, set off on an epic two-week Vespa ride from Rome to a first Vespa rally in Sulmona in the province of L’Aquila in Abruzzo. The trip, which began June 30, 2022, then took the riders through Umbria to Spoleto and Perugia, on to Tuscany via Montalcino,...

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In this brand new series, readers are invited on a virtual journey that embraces the whole of Italy, but that focuses on the lesser known, smaller, often ignored localities. In this difficult moment it's paramount that we help the struggling economies of minor travel destinations, as opposed to the more established ones. This first appointment take...

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Every morning, Marino Verì walks onto the trabocco built by his family generations ago and listens to the Adriatic Sea rumbling beneath him. A lot has changed since the stilted wooden structure was built: Marino’s family have gone from fisherfolk to successful restaurateurs. Even the landscape here, just south of Pescara, has transformed — an earth...

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It has recently been defined as a long life elixir by researchers from the University of Teramo, but the Abruzzo-native "sdijuno" has always existed. A sort of ante litteram aperitif, a mid-morning meal of simple local products of the peasant tradition: a little cheese, a slice of bread, a few eggs scrambled with vegetables. Sdijuno comes from the...

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Until a few decades ago, only a few examples of sixteenth-century Castelli majolica were known to have survived, mainly attributed to the Pompeii family, whose best well-known ceramic artist was Orazio (ca. 1507-1588/9). His house is also well-known, due to the inscription on the lintel of a window: “Haec domus east Oratii figuli 1562” (“This is th...

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Abruzzo: you might have heard of this region located in the center of Italy, a couple of hours away from Rome. Maybe you have ancestors from there, or you have seen one of its beautiful towns in a movie (like “The American” movie with George Clooney, that has been partially filmed in Sulmona), or you just read about it while looking for some authen...

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