Abruzzo-mania

After a couple days in Penne, Ben's family friend Emilia set up a tour for us to see more of the Abruzzo region. John, an English expat living with his wife in a little valley near Penne, runs tours of the area and the nearby Gran Sasso National Park. If you find yourself in Abruzzo, definitely give John a call. Here's the website for his Bed & Breakfast and tour company, Undici Abruzzo. There are some beautiful old towns in the area that predate the national park (by hundreds of years), but other than those places, the park is protected from development, which makes for some beautiful scenery. 

During the driving tour, we had a huge elevation gain that resulted in some amazing views, even just along the roadside: 

Here's one of the first towns we stopped in, Farindola:

Here's another view of the valley, as we got up even higher. In this area they grow wine, olives, and sunflowers (for the oil); you can see all the fields below:

About an hour or so after leaving Penne, we got up to a plateau and the area they call "Little Tibet", since it looks very stark and mountainous, with very few trees.

As we were driving up to this break in the fences, we saw a shepherd moving his sheep across the road:

And later on we saw some cattle (with baby calves!): 

This national park is home to the highest peaks in continental Italy south of the Alps. This peak called Corno Grande is the highest in the whole Appenines mountain range at 9,554 feet! 

Up at the base of the peak there are a few places of interest. The first is a pretty cool looking little observatory: 

There is also this hotel, where Mussolini was imprisoned at the end of WWII. In an effort to hide Mussolini from the Germans, he was moved to Campo Imperatore, because it is such an isolated area that would be difficult for his German allies to reach for a rescue attempt. 

The hotel has kept his room just as it was when he stayed there, and they have a small exhibit with some photos of his arrival and quite dramatic departure in an airplane.  Here's the office area of his room: 

Here are some weird pictures on the wall in his room of soldiers forming the letters "H" for Hitler and "M" for Mussolini: 

Nazi soldiers came to help Mussolini escape and had to hold the tail of the glider plane while they revved the engine before letting the plane drop off this ledge. Apparently the plane did a free fall for a minute before it was able to straighten out and take Mussolini to safety in Nazi-controlled Vienna (see here for more on the raid). There is also a cable car that runs during winter; here's the view looking down the mountain with the cables of the car in the foreground: 

The scenery up on top of the Campo Imperatore was incredible, and so different from the area closer to Penne just over an hour away: 

After having a quick coffee break at the hotel, we drove further into the park to visit some really old towns. We're talking REALLY old. Some of these places have city walls, gates, little doors and buildings that are from Roman times but have been continuously rebuilt and maintained. 

I liked this house, with just the door left and nature taking back over inside the rest of the house:

This area has had some earthquakes recently; unfortunately, some of these old towers and city walls fell, and are now being supported by scaffolding structures: 

I think people really were smaller back then, check out this door!

After stopping in the town Rocca di Calascio for lunch (Will had mushroom chitarrina pasta and wild boar and I had a local lentil soup and tasty gnocchi with radicchio and chickpea sauce), we did a short hike up to the top of the town to see the castle. Here's the view of the valley from the castle:

And here's the castle! 

We were having a good time pretending to be archers: 

Here's the view looking back at the highest peak in Gran Sasso: 

Just down the hill from the castle there is a neat little chapel, both were in such incredible shape for being so old. 

On our way back home to Penne we stopped in another town with a scenic historic center. A lot of these little towns are somewhat abandoned, but there are definitely a good number of families who still live in these remote places.

The tour was so fun, and we were glad we got to see a little more of the Abruzzo region!

Next post coming soon, about our time in Cinque Terre!