A Weekend Around the Gran Sasso

Using as an excuse a nearly expired Smartbox voucher, we took this autumn trip without moving too far from home and choosing a place that would allow me to make some trips I had in mind for a long time. The hotel we chose was the Monastero Fortezza di Santo Spirito, with a truly characteristic and evocative atmosphere and a grand breakfast included, near the village of Barisciano. What I had been “chasing” for some years were the Grotte di Stiffe, considered the only karst caves still “alive” in Italy, in the sense that the underground river is still changing their appearance. On the website there are opening times and prices for the visit, obviously necessarily guided. Maybe it is because we are passionate about karst phenomena, but this visit alone is worth a day trip from Rome.

After a good lunch in a restaurant in the area, which, by the way, is exactly that of the epicentre of the L'Aquila earthquake, we went for a walk to the beautiful Castello di Rocca Calascio, already seen many, many years ago. The following morning, helped also by another beautiful day, we drove across the whole plateau that from Castel del Monte reaches Campo Imperatore, from where we took a nice walk to the base of the Corno Grande of the Gran Sasso and then to the Rifugio Duca degli Abruzzi, to have a classic mountain-hut lunch. We then came down along another route and slowly made our way home. The National Park of the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga has magnificent panoramas that sometimes seem lunar, where we decided to return better equipped to do more walks. A pity that we were unable to find any indication of the possible routes and their difficulty and danger.

We gathered a lot of information only from the many people we met, but this time it was a bit late! Maybe next time!