There comes a point for many experienced travellers when Italy starts to feel a little different.
You still love Florence, Venice and the villages of Tuscany. But perhaps you no longer want to queue to enter a church, book dinner weeks in advance or squeeze through streets filled with tour groups. You want to slow down. You want to discover somewhere rather than simply visit it.
This is where Abruzzo comes in.
Stretching from the Apennine mountains to the Adriatic Sea, Abruzzo offers something that is becoming increasingly precious in Italy: space. Space to explore, space to breathe and, perhaps most importantly, space for unexpected discoveries.
A Different Kind of Italy
In the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park, the landscape is dramatic and wonderfully varied. Mountains, high plateaus, forests and tiny stone villages sit surprisingly close together.
But the real pleasure comes from travelling slowly.
Walk part of the Cammino del Gran Sasso, cycle through the countryside or simply stop in a village you have never heard of. Abruzzo rewards curiosity.
Places such as Ofena tell their stories through wine and olive oil. On the Navelli plateau, saffron has been cultivated for generations. Elsewhere, pecorino, ricotta and the region’s famous arrosticini reflect a pastoral tradition shaped by centuries of transhumance.
Here, food isn’t simply something served in a restaurant. It is part of the landscape.
Small Villages, Big Stories
Perhaps the greatest pleasure of Abruzzo is its borghi.
Many have faced the same challenge experienced across rural Italy: younger generations leaving and traditional businesses disappearing. Yet tourism, when developed thoughtfully, can become part of the solution.
In Aielli, for example, street art and astronomy have helped breathe new life into an ancient hilltop village. Elsewhere, walking routes are bringing visitors into communities that might otherwise be bypassed.
This is tourism on a human scale.
Instead of arriving on a coach, taking photographs and leaving, you stay. You walk. You eat locally. You meet producers. You hear the stories behind the places you are visiting.
And your money stays within the community.
From Mountains to the Adriatic
Abruzzo’s other great surprise is its diversity.
You can spend the morning surrounded by the peaks and vast landscapes of the Gran Sasso and later find yourself heading towards the Adriatic. Along the coast, the traditional wooden fishing platforms known as trabocchi stretch dramatically over the sea, another reminder of the relationship between Abruzzo’s people and their landscape.
Perhaps This Is the Future of Italian Travel
Overtourism doesn’t mean we should stop travelling to Italy. Perhaps we simply need to travel differently.
Choose lesser-known regions. Stay longer. Travel outside peak season. Walk rather than rush. Eat what is produced locally. Spend money with independent businesses and allow time for conversations.
Abruzzo doesn’t need to become the next Tuscany.
Its attraction is precisely that it isn’t.
For those of us searching for the Italy we remember—welcoming, surprising, authentic and still capable of stopping us in our tracks—Abruzzo may just be the answer.
#visitabruzzo #abruzzoturismo
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