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Report 1051: Forgotten Province - Abruzzo - and Associated Travel

By davidx from UK, Spring 2006

Trip Description: A trip concentrating on Abruzzo and Umbria. We went for two weeks, travelling by train and bus, starting at Milan (Bergamo Airport) and finishing at Pisa. We spent three nights with friends at L'Áquila, 12 in hotels and one in an apartment (which we expected to be a hotel!)

Destinations: Countries - Italy; Regions/Cities - Florence, Tuscany, Umbria

Categories: Family/Friends; Hotels/B&Bs; Day Tours; Sightseeing; Independent Travel; 2 People

From the castle, L'Áquila

Late last century I went with a friend to Italy. The idea was to start with his family (including one new grandchild) at L'Aquila and then travel ourselves in Abruzzo and Lazio. It didn't turn out that way. My friend was extremely ill at his son's house and we stayed there throughout with me making day-trips. Since then I had wanted to go to the area again with Pam, my wife, and she had seen a book about it and was keen to go and see for herself.

I don't drive since heart problems in 1995 and Pam doesn't fancy driving on the 'wrong' side of the road so we used public transport. One advantage of being retired is flexibility about dates and we were able to obtain very cheap flights. This involved flying from Leeds/Bradford Airport in England to Milan and returning from Pisa to Manchester.

We booked a long weekend with the family of my now, sadly, late friend (they had invited us several times) in roughly the middle of our trip and planned to spend two nights in Umbria each way. With a week altogether in Abruzzo, this left three nights. Two in Tuscany at the end would give a chance of a lightning visit to Firenze and, with the assistance of the Rough Guide, I chose Modena (accent on the first syllable) for the first night.

Planning transport for the trips there and back presented little difficulty with considerable use of the Trenitalia site and bus travel in Abruzzo (other than urban buses) is very well covered by the Arpa site. We encountered a couple of specific problems, which I'll cover on other pages, as they come up.