Stayed their in September 2016. To say it was a fantastic time is really an understatement. The…read morefood is unmatched. The rooms are new and spotless. I cannot wait to return. John De Angelis

L'Ara Del Colle hotel and restuarant are a great find in the heart of Abruzzo. The name recalls the…read morefresh mountain air that the town of Cansano is famous for in Italy. Filomena and her family do all the cooking and provide family style hospitality in a beautiful Italian mountain setting. If you're interested in a unique travel experience away from the tours and want to sample some authentic local cuisine try the pasta guitarra with truffle (tartffo) or the tagliatella. For a secondo, the roast lamb and veal are prepared in the local tradition and are always great. Or try a pitcher of arrosticini skewers of mini lamb kebabs with a fresh green salad. The local wine is great. Breakfast is generous in the Italian style collazione with pastries, cereal and coffee/juices. The rooms are new, clean and well appointed. Try the front two that include large balcony spaces overlooking the piazza.. See a bit of the real Italy if you plan to visit this area and stop in at L'Ara dell Colle. Ciao

From the owner: Direttamente sulla spiaggia finissima di Silvi Marina, in posizione centrale, nella zona del…read morepasseggio, perfetto per la famiglia con bambini.

Beautiful hotel, family owned and operated; there was a pride and soul to this place. The…read morerenovation was meticulously done. My room was beautiful and so nice to return to after long days of exploring the amazing region of Abruzzo. The staff gave me incredible service that included some fantastic recommendations for eating and imbibing in the area. I'm already planning a return - a presto

We can't say enough good things about Hotel Rojan. The location in central Sulmona was perfect. We…read morehad a lovely suite on the top floor. We were close to everything, but it was very quiet, and we had parking right outside the door of the hotel. Most importantly, Angela and her family were so lovely and accommodating. Angela provided us with wonderful ideas of places to see and things to do. She gave us handwritten notes and maps to help us plan our excursions. Angela helped with restaurant and bar choices and made reservations for us. Dinner at Cantina di Biffi, fabulous! We wish that we had planned to spend more days in Sulmona, and we hope to return as there are many other places to see. What a beautiful area, and Angela's enthusiasm for her region helped us enjoy it so much more than we probably would have without her guidance. We were in Italy for 10 days on this trip, and Sulmona was the best part of it. We also recommend the winery tour at Cantina Margiotta which is just 15 minutes from the hotel. We will definitely stay at Hotel Rojan again. Thanks Angela!

The B&B in Centro Pacentro is a beautiful place to stay. The host and his mom were thoughtful,…read moregenerous with their time and made our stay enjoyable. Our room was very clean and large enough for two people to comfortably share the space. The main parts of the home open to visitors were immaculately kept and tastefully decorated with beautiful family heirloom of the five generations of ancestors. He had truly beautiful pieces of history. The breakfast was fresh, plentiful and offered a sumptuous variety of foods. Alberto could not have been more generous with his time and helpful knowledge and information. I hope to return once more.

From the owner: Cozy bed and breakfast in the center of the old town. Available as a breakfast area an ancient…read moreliving room and a great terrace with castle view. Confortable panoramic bedrooms with ensuite bathroom, tv, wi-fi, fridge, hairdryer, shower gel, shampoo. Present on site an interesting photographic exhibition about the 5 generations who lived in the historic building. Free parking near the entrance. Ideal destination for mountains and medieval villages lovers!

The place is nicely renovated and well worth every euro. The staff is extremely friendly and…read morehelpful. They greeted us with open arms. They went out of their way to ensure my partner and I had a lovely stay. They gave is a map of all the "hot spots" in San Benedetto del Tronto which really appreciated. The sea was just 40 meters from the exit, their cafè by the beach was excellent with a great selection of drinks and ice creams. Sea umbrella and deck chairs were included and I have heard this is equivalent of save 15 euro/day. Highly Recommended

If you travel a lot, and if you back-pack off the beaten path, you'll understand there comes a…read morepoint where the restaurants become un-Yelpable. It's like that scene in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" when the entire village serves Harrison Ford's 'Indy' a plate of, what was it? Four seeds and a dead horse-fly? You just can't give the village zero stars. That's how I felt when I checked in at Pub Number 17, a renovated bed and breakfast with 1,400 year old slate walls three feet thick. You couldn't even tell it was a restaurant; it had no name anywhere on the front, no menu, no specials, no one to even greet you. I immediately expected the worst: that swarthy, unventilated, refridgeration-less, mud-on-concrete floor eatery where the vegetables are colder than the beer, rancid meat is served with finality by grieving staff, and cubes of cigarette smoke can be carved out of the air with a butter knife. Think Hungary, 1992. But I was amazed. The owner was bartending, so his wife seated us: 20 tables past a labyrinth of halls in the back. It was awkward for a moment: no menus. Someone said in Italian: "Spaghetti?", she said "alle olio?", we said "ok". That's code for "we have no sauce prepared". The spaghetti was homemade, and a revelation of "al dente", the best alle olio I could imagine. I forgot about coodies and finished everyone else's plate. Each bowl after the meal was 5/8 inch deep in oil and we hit it with the appetizer bread. After the spaghetti, she appeared again and said "Carne?". We said "Yes." We received a foot long sopressata sausage cut into inch long bits and a cheese plate of two provolones and a caciocavalla. The wine sealed the deal. We asked for a "rosso" and got "Montepulciano d' Abruzzi" which I have added as a new wine on my Vivino app. My favorite montepulcianos are La Berne's 2004 which I buy for $200 a bottle. This was better. And it came as the house red. They tacked on $14 to the bill. Simple meal. Magical moment. Five stars. Put iPhone back in pocket. Have a nice day.

We stayed at Villa Luciana for 3 weeks in June 2015 and thoroughly enjoyed our stay. Villa Luciana…read moreis a 3-bedroom apartment four short blocks from the beach. It's spacious and the gardens are beautiful. The cost runs around 45 euro a night for a stay of two weeks or longer, so it's cheaper than most of the hotel rooms and far more spacious, especially for our family of four. This place is not listed on most of the English-language vacation rental sites as it appears that the family that owns it markets it mainly to Italian customers. But the guy who manages the place, who goes by the single name Franco, speaks English well and made us feel very comfortable. We can highly recommend Villa Luciana to English-speaking tourists. We ended up here by chance. We had booked a reservation at Casa Di Franco, an apartment building converted to vacation rentals, which was owned by the same family. The Casa Di Franco was sold just a couple of weeks before our arrival, and Franco contacted us to let us know, saying that he had arranged for an even nicer place at no extra cost. He met us there upon our arrival, made sure everything was okay, and gave us his cell number to reach him if we had any problems. The honest and open way that he handled the change of our accommodations convinced us that he's a person we wanted to do business with, and we were very pleased with the place he found for us. The family apparently owns or markets several vacation rentals in the Abruzzo via the www.latuacasainabruzzo.it website. I can't comment on the places they have in the other towns, but Villa Luciana was just great. The pictures on the website really don't do it full justice. When we drove up, our reaction was: "Wow, it's beautiful". The building has two rental units, one of the ground floor and one upstairs. We stayed in the ground floor unit. The overall size of the apartment was about 1000 square feet, considerably more than you get in a hotel for the same price. The unit has a good sized kitchen with a gas range and a toaster oven. It's well stocked with dishes, glasses, pots and pans, and there's a market about two blocks away along Via Arno. We had breakfast at the apartment and went out for lunch and dinner, but if someone were to prefer to cook and eat in, this place is well set up for it. There's a four-seat table right in the kitchen. The rest of the apartment consists of three bedrooms. One has a queen size bed and the other two have singles. All three bedrooms are spacious, and there are two well-equipped bathrooms. There's a small laundry room accessed from the outside that has a washing machine only. We did our own laundry there and hung stuff on the line to dry, but if that is too primitive for you, there's a laundromat on the corner of Via Arno and Via Toscana. Our children, age 18 and 14, really enjoyed the place. They loved being able to run over to public beach in five minutes, come back to the apartment when they wanted to, and then head back for the beach. In early June, the water of the Adriatic was suprisingly warm, and we enjoyed swimming in the salty sea along with other beach activities. Garden Lido just over the line in Tortoreto Lido was very close, and we enjoyed the wonderful restaurants of Alba, especially Carlo V, the Gaugin Pub, the Pizzeria del Pescatore, the Friggitoria for takeout, and Istanbul Kebab for delicious middle eastern food. The area where Villa Luciana is located felt very safe, and the kids went out on their own, found their own gelateria, pasticceria and places to eat, and in general had a great time enjoying the run of the place. Alba was a wonderful place to use as a base for our three weeks in Italy, and we had a chance to see Civitella, Teramo, the Salinello Gorge, L'Aquila, Vasto, Florence, Sienna, Arezzo and Rome. The people we met in Abruzzo were wonderful. I'd heard from some American tourists that Italians were unpleasant to tourists, and maybe that's true in some of the big cities, but that certainly wasn't the case in Abruzzo. Everyone was gracious, many spoke English, and those who didn't were patient with our slow and limited Italian.