Sulmona Discovery Guide
Why Visit Sulmona the Smart Way
Sulmona is a town of about twenty-three thousand people in a mountain basin in Abruzzo, and it has two claims that have nothing whatever to do with each other. Ovid was born here in 43 BC and said so in writing. And the sugared almonds handed out at Italian weddings are made here, at a factory running since 1783.
The friction is that Sulmona is a working provincial town rather than a preserved one. It has traffic, a hospital, a Wednesday market, and 1960s blocks next to fifteenth-century palaces.
That is also the reason to come. This is what an Italian town of real substance looks like when nobody has curated it: a thirteenth-century aqueduct running the length of one of the largest squares in Italy, mountains closing every view, and an Easter ritual in which a statue of the Virgin is carried across that square at a dead run. Pair it with Monte Morrone above the town and the hermitage on its face.
How to Experience Sulmona
Stand under the aqueduct
At the square end, looking through the arches to the Annunziata with Morrone behind. It is the one view that explains the town.
Wednesday or Saturday morning
The market takes the whole of Piazza Garibaldi and is a working market, not a craft one.
Watch confetti being made
The Pelino museum is free and the factory floor behind it is still running.
Walk up to the hermitage
Sant'Onofrio al Morrone is a steep half-hour above the abbey, built onto the cliff. The Temple of Hercules is on the way.
Read the Annunziata facade
Left to right it is Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque on one frontage, which is three centuries in thirty metres.
Take the slow train
The line south towards Isernia climbs to over 1,200 metres across the Cinquemiglia plateau, and historic trains run it in season.
Where to Find Authentic Cultural and Historical Character
Sulmona is self-sufficient in a way that small Italian cities often are not, and it does not particularly need you.
It has its own hospital, its own courts, its own schools and a police academy, and it is the market town for a valley of thirty-odd villages. That gives it a confidence that places its size usually lack, and a certain flatness of manner: people are friendly without being effusive and are not performing anything.
The Peligno identity is strong. The valley was isolated for a very long time and people here distinguish themselves from the coast, from L'Aquila and from Rome in roughly that order.
Emigration is the long story underneath everything. The valley emptied towards the Americas from the 1880s and towards northern Italy after the war, and August is when the descendants come back.
Visitors are noticed but are not an event. The town gets Italian weekenders, the confetti trade and a steady trickle of people walking the Maiella; it does not get coaches, and nothing is arranged for them.
The 2009 earthquake at L'Aquila, forty minutes north, is a live subject here, and the fault under this valley is not a theoretical one.
Travel Profile
- Best Known For Ovid was born here and said so in the Tristia • Italy's confetti town, making sugared almonds since 1783 • The Madonna carried at a run across the square on Easter Sunday • A thirteenth-century aqueduct along one of Italy's largest squares
- Travel Styles Cultural tourism • History • Food and drink • Off the beaten path • Festivals • Hiking • Mountain travel • Rail travel • Winter sports
- Travel Environments Historic cities • Mountains • National parks • Countryside
- Getting Around A rail junction on the Rome-Pescara line, with direct trains to Rome in about two and a half hours and to Pescara in an hour and a quarter, plus branches north to L'Aquila and south over the Cinquemiglia plateau towards Isernia; the A25 motorway passes the town and coaches to Rome are frequent; the old centre is flat and crossed on foot in twenty minutes, and only the Maiella, the Gole del Sagittario and the hermitage road really need a car
Responsible Travel Tips
Sulmona has no crowding problem. It has a depopulation problem, and the valley around it has it worse.
Stay a night rather than stopping for lunch. Almost all the town's visitors arrive and leave the same day, and the difference to the place is entirely in the overnights.
Buy the confetti from the producers in the town rather than from a supermarket elsewhere; it is a real craft industry employing real people, and it is the one thing the town exports.
On Morrone and the Maiella, stay on marked paths. This is a national park with bear and wolf populations, and both are genuinely present; keep dogs leashed and food packed away.
Fire risk on the limestone slopes is severe from June to September.
At the hermitage and the Roman sanctuary, do not climb on the structures; both are lightly supervised.
During Holy Week, the processions are religious observances that visitors are welcome at rather than performances; stand at the edges and do not block the confraternities.
When to Visit Sulmona
Easter is the single best thing to time for: la Madonna che scappa in piazza, on Easter Sunday morning, is the town's ritual and fills Piazza Garibaldi.
May and June are green, mild and quiet, with the Morrone still streaked with snow.
Late July brings the Giostra Cavalleresca, the costumed joust in the main square, which is the busiest the town gets in summer.
August is hot, and it is when families who left the valley come back; the town is full but not touristed.
September and October are the other good window — clear, warm, with the historic trains running south over the plateau.
Winter is cold and can be snowbound, but the ski areas at Roccaraso are forty minutes away and the town itself is at its most ordinary and most real.
Travel Cost Levels in Sulmona
What a visitor actually pays in Sulmona
Sulmona is cheap by Italian standards because its economy is local rather than touristic. Prices rise sharply for two windows only: Easter weekend and the joust in late July, when the small stock of rooms in the centre sells out well in advance. Outside those, arriving without a booking is usually fine.