Hi--
I could most appreciate some help with four of our six travel itinerary days bases in Capestrano, Abruzzo. Our two coastal days are easy and done. Getting around inland is much more challenging. My wife and I are of course facing indirect roads from place to place. I am most familiar with these having visited and driven Italy many times over the years. The dirivng is not an issue. It's avoiding excess time in the car that is of concern.

There are potentially 40 to 50 very interesting villages and areas "around" Capestrano, but to string four sites to visit into hopefully under 150 km (around 200 at most) for a day's drive becomes difficult. I would love to get some suggestions of better sites and villages (I'll do the research once getting the names) to fill those four days inland. (I'm sure many will be on my already collected list, but cutting down to the best options to each day's fitting daily route would be great help.

Grazie tanto!

A half dozen years ago, in mid-May, we had all day to get from Ascoli Piceno to Rome for a flight home. We decided to try to find a little hill town, Castel del Monte (that we had read was near impossible to find). It had been featured in a then recent George Clooney film, The American. To get there, we took a lonely route, first stopping when we spotted a splendid fortress town out in nowhere. It was Civitella del Tronto, and maybe the really good memory of it was that our arrival, as clearly the only tourists that day, was met, coincidentally, in the main square by a band of men who came out of a quiet side street. A literal marching band, 30 strong, all uniformed in black and white with gold and black hats. And four huge nickel-plated sousaphones. But I digress. We next found ourselves driving through the magnificent Grand Sasso National Park. The mountains around us were covered in snow, but it was a warm May day with temps in the 80’s. It seemed like the drive took hours, but it was maybe 25 or 30 miles as we recall. Roads not the greatest, photo opportunities everywhere, warm sunshine, rain, fog, and even sleet. And, lots and lots of what looked like wild horses in the verdant valleys. We could see Campo Imperatore, a ski area, that once was a brief WWII prison for Mussolini. A little wild west feel; we passed more bicycles than cars that day. We eventually made it to Castel del Monte and found it to be beautiful, yet small, and we walked every street of this former film set and saw only two people. Even though we had a long descent from the national park, this hill town is still at a 4500 foot elevation. We also took a quick peek at Santo Stefano di Sessanio, another beautiful hill town, but it was under repair from the terrible earthquake of 2010. By all means, visit the National Park. We have always wanted to spend more time in that region and are anxious to hear more about Capestrano.

One good resource for smaller towns is the organization Borghi Piu Belli d'Italia whose members have met several criteria for traditional towns. The info pages of each town will give you some idea of the character of the borgo. The Abruzzo link is here: http://borghipiubelliditalia.it/abruzzo/ and the site has both Italian and English. Some of the towns are fantastic, but you should do additional research as they can also be pretty while extremely depopulated. Some will have services, and some nada.

We had lunch in an excellent restaurant on the main square of Capestrano last month. The restaurant is Le Torre and they specialize in crayfish and trout from the nearby river, but they have many "mountain based" foods on the menu as well. From there it is easy to reach the large town of Sulmona, as well as Pacentro; which has an excellent restaurant and is one nof the many "Most Beautifiul" villages, of which there arre what seem like multitudes in this region. I'd recommend the drive to Scanno as well, if you are ok with winding mountain driving.
Navelli is famous for saffron production, and Ofena is supposed to be lovely and famous for lace work, I think. We did not get to that last town, as the restaurant we had fixed upon (Ophis) was closed during our time iin the area.

Do know that there is come construction work going on in Capestrano, or at least there was last month. It sounds to me as if you chose an excellent spot for your stay. The driving in the Sulmona Valley is easy, and mostly flat, and the drive to the hillside towns is not difficult at all, although as I menionted, the road to Scanno might be tricky for some. One of the routes up to Pacentro is closed due to falling rock; check this before you attempt the drive and get proper directions; do not rely on GPS.

That looming town of Citvitella del Tronto is, indeed gorgeous but not sure how long the drive is from Capestrano.

While we were having lunch in Capestrano, we met a couple from the US who owned a home there. Unusual as apart from this man and his wofe and two friends, we met no Americans during our time in Abruzzo.

And we met a French woman working at the tourist info kiosk in Civitella del Tronto. She asked us with some surprise, "How did you end up choosing to come here?" And we asked the same of her. Then she loaned us some bicycles and recommended we tool around that way. We did a few circuits (it's a small town).

I agree that Civitella might be a rather long drive (1.5 hours or so?). Santo Stefano di Sessanio is worth a look--the restoration project itself is rather interesting and of course the location is stunning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santo_Stefano_di_Sessanio

Oops, I made a big mistake above. The restaurant in Capestrano is IL CASTELLO,, not Lel Torre, as I wrote. Here is the website; the crayfish is superb and you can have it in several different dishes:

Ristorante Il Castello, Capestrano

Some wonderful ideas and sharing, folks ~ I'll get onto some better research for them

Grazie!

My heart is going pitter-patter just thinking about this place. You have great ideas from others here; I would just add that if you do plan to do this in May, that is the month for the Giro d'Italia cycling event, and certain roads - and towns - will be affected. I know one stage begins on the coast in Vasto, and ends in l'Aquila. Just to keep in mind. Have a fabulous trip. It's a wonderful part of Italy.

Also meant to share this agritourismo in the Capestrano area: Terra di Solina. We didn't make it here, but it looks like a worthy dining contender.