Distances are measured from Casa Magnola, in the Campagnolo district. Ovindoli is small, so nearly everything is minutes away: the ski lifts and the riding centre are walkable, and the village centre is a quarter of an hour downhill on foot, or seven minutes by car.
The ski area, with lifts leaving from Piazzale Magnola and Piazzale Dolce Vita. Runs for every level between 1,500 and 2,000 metres, north-facing, giving one of the longest seasons in the central Apennines. The website has ski passes, slope conditions and webcams.
Lifts and ski passesOn Via del Ceraso, effectively behind the house. Horse riding and mountain treks for all levels, including complete beginners, plus lessons, night rides and a small restaurant. It is popular: phone a few days ahead to book.
Contact and photosThe adventure park at Piazzale Dolce Vita, with rope courses through the trees at rising levels of difficulty, gnome trails for small children and a climbing wall. In winter it becomes a snow tubing park with a lift carpet.
Courses and pricesThe municipal gym and the sports ground sit side by side, opposite the riding centre. Classes are run by the Energetika association and booked through the Palestre app. There is a padel court in the same complex.
Where it isThe Sirente-Velino Park authority maintains around 400 km of numbered, mapped routes for walking, riding and cycling. The website gives each itinerary with its start, finish, ascent and timings, and — more importantly — whether it is currently open: some paths close in spring to protect the Apennine chamois.
The classic first walk: up through the woods to the cross on the rocky spur at 1,574 metres, with a full circle of views over the village and the plateau. A little over an hour of climbing, fine for children who can walk, but not for pushchairs.
The Avezzano CAI mountain hut at Fonte Tavoloni, at 1,390 metres on the flank of Monte Magnola. It starts essentially at the door: along the paved road up to the ski lifts, on the left, a Park noticeboard marks the beginning of an almost level track, first through woods and then in the open. An hour of easy walking, fine with children and popular with mountain bikers. From the hut, tougher routes head on to the Rifugio Telespazio at 1,980 metres and to the summit of Monte Magnola. Members run the hut at weekends in July and August; the winter room stays open all year. Red and roe deer are common here, and in late summer you may see a golden eagle overhead.
CAI Avezzano — hutsOne of the finest huts in the central Apennines, run by the Rome CAI, at 2,102 metres on the Colletto di Pezza with the Gran Sasso behind it. It can only be reached on foot, in about two hours, starting from the Piani di Pezza or from the Campo Felice plain. Lunch and dinner are served, and in summer the hut fills its calendar with concerts, book launches and evenings on local traditions. Open continuously through the summer season and by arrangement the rest of the year: call or write before you set out.
Opening times and eventsEighty-seven kilometres in eleven stages, from Rocca di Mezzo to Secinaro, following St Francis of Assisi and Blessed Thomas of Celano, his first biographer. The route runs straight through Ovindoli, minutes from the house: stage four leaves the village and drops to Celano in seven kilometres, losing more than six hundred metres almost the whole way, past the ruins of the castle of Santo Potito and the watchtower of Santa Iona. You need not walk the whole thing — a single stage makes a fine day out, with someone collecting you by car at the far end.
Ovindoli is one of the best bases in the Apennines for anyone who rides. The Sirente-Velino Park authority has laid out and signposted a mountain-bike loop, the Grande Anello del Parco, promoted as MTB 200: around 80 kilometres of forest tracks, mountain trails and cycle paths with very little tarmac, touching ten villages of the Park, Ovindoli included. The official start and finish are at the Park headquarters in Rocca di Mezzo, ten minutes from here; fit riders close it in a day, others split it into two or three stages sleeping in the villages along the way. Best from May to October; on an e-bike it is within almost anyone's reach.
Bikes can be left under cover in the building's shared garage; it is not locked, though, so do bring a lock and don't leave accessories on them. Ask us when you book and we'll tell you how to reach the start of the trails straight from the house.
These are the places we happily send our guests to. Opening hours and closing days change a great deal between high and low season, so it is always worth a phone call before setting off: the links lead to up-to-date contact details and hours.
At Piazzale Magnola, where the ski lifts start, surrounded by woodland. The name is misleading: inside it is a careful dining room with a fireplace in the middle. Abruzzo cooking — boards of cured meats and cheeses, crostini, fresh pasta and meat off the grill. The easiest place for a midday stop without driving down to the village: between runs in winter, after a walk in summer.
Contact details and hoursOn Piazza San Rocco, in the middle of the village. Mountain cooking and arrosticini — skewers of mutton grilled over coals — with tables out on the square when the weather allows. Handy for a stop after a walk around the centre.
Contact details and hoursA small family trattoria on Via dell'Alpino, inside the old village, with one wall of bare stone. Simple, careful cooking, from the mountain antipasto to gnocchi al marcetto — made with the strong fermented pecorino of local tradition. Leave the car lower down and walk up; the lanes are narrow.
Contact details and hoursNext to the pine wood, on Via Colasacco. Generous portions of Abruzzo cooking, from pappardelle with wild boar to roast pork shank, with an indoor room, tables outside and space for children. A good choice for a large table.
Contact details and hoursIn the small village of Rovere, the most refined table in the area, with a wine list that is surprising for a place this size and a good gluten-free offering. Book ahead, especially in the evening and at weekends.
Contact details and hoursA trattoria and pizzeria with a wood-fired oven and local cooking: gnocchi, pulse soups and pallotte cacio e ova, cheese-and-egg dumplings in tomato sauce. Worth the detour to Rocca di Mezzo, and in season it pairs well with a walk on the Piani di Pezza.
Contact details and hoursAt Costa della Cavata, above Rocca di Mezzo, with a terrace looking out over the plateau and the woods. Traditional cooking and arrosticini. People come mainly for the view: ask for a table in the front row, and book.
Contact details and hoursOvindoli makes a good base for exploring inland Abruzzo. Times are approximate and depend a lot on the season and on the condition of the mountain roads.
Just outside the village, standing alone on the plateau, a twelfth-century abbey church with an almost bare front: a rose window, a doorway, nothing else. Inside is another matter. The walls are covered by a Giottesque fresco cycle painted between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with a Last Supper filling one whole side, and a steep little stair drops into the crypt, where the walls of the original shepherds' chapel survive. It reopened in 2019 after the post-earthquake restoration. Visits are by appointment only and it is normally shut in winter. The guided tours are run by Pro Loco volunteers: book on 327 3743487 or 347 0320183, ringing a few days ahead so they have time to arrange it.
The castle looking down over the Fucino plain, with the Marsica museum of sacred art. It goes well with a visit to the gorges.
A Roman town with its forum, amphitheatre and paved streets still legible, at the foot of Monte Velino. Little visited and surprisingly extensive.
A canyon several kilometres long, its walls closing to a few metres in places. Proper shoes are needed, and check access before you go.
The village of murals, with its medieval tower turned astronomical observatory and façades painted by artists from across Europe.
A live cave system with an underground river, waterfalls and lakes. Sixteen degrees all year round: perfect on a hot day.
The regional capital, with the basilica of Collemaggio and a historic centre largely given back after the earthquake. A full day.
An eleventh-century Benedictine church clinging to the slopes of Monte Velino above the hamlet of Rosciolo, the mountain behind it and the Fucino plain in front. Inside are the pulpit and the ciborium signed in 1150 by the masters Roberto and Nicodemo — Jonah swallowed by the whale, David wrestling a bear, the dance of Salome — and a very rare wooden iconostasis, one of only two left in Abruzzo. The church is kept locked: a woman in the village holds the keys and the visit is arranged by telephone, free of charge. The road up to it also carries the celebrated “salita in discesa”, the uphill that runs downhill: along one stretch a car left in neutral seems to roll up the slope, and a bottle set on the tarmac rolls upwards too. It is an optical illusion — what looks like a rise is really a slight fall, preceded by a genuine climb that fools the eye — but the effect is disconcerting in person, and children remember it longer than the church.
Details and the keyholder's numberOvid's home town, and the home of confetti — the sugared almonds made into flowers here — enclosed by the Majella and Morrone mountains. The medieval aqueduct runs along the side of Piazza Garibaldi, one of the largest squares in Abruzzo, where the market is held on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The old confetti workshops can still be visited, and in late July the town stops for the Giostra Cavalleresca, its costumed equestrian tournament.
Farming and shepherding villages at a thousand metres, under the north wall of Monte Sirente: a hundred or so two-storey stone cottages, byre below and hayloft above, gathered around a shared well. They were lived in from May to October, for the grazing and for the lentils and potatoes grown on the terraces, and were left behind between the 1950s and the 1970s. Many have since been restored and come back to life in summer, but mains electricity never arrived. Those of Tione are the largest and best preserved, with the little church of the Santissima Trinità; a path links them to the Pagliare of Fontecchio, passing a small lake on the way. You can drive up from Goriano Valli, the last stretch steep and unsurfaced, or walk up from Fontecchio — all of it uphill.
The Pagliare of Tione (in Italian)The Medici-era fortified village at 1,250 metres on the southern side of the Gran Sasso: white stone houses, covered alleyways, and the Medici tower raised again after the earthquake. Lentils are grown on the plateau and turn up in the soups of local osterie. A few kilometres on is Rocca Calascio, the highest fortress in the Apennines — the two work well in a single day.
The house is easiest to reach by car. From Rome Fiumicino it is about two hours on the A24/A25 motorways; from Rome city centre, an hour and three quarters. Pescara airport, on the Adriatic, is about an hour and a half away. Trains reach Avezzano and Celano, but the last stretch up to the plateau needs a car or a taxi, so we generally suggest hiring one. Tell us your flight times and we will help you work out the route.
Winter tyres, or chains carried in the car, are compulsory on the plateau roads. Helmets are compulsory for everyone on the slopes, at any age. After fresh snow the last stretch up to the house needs a little care.
Pharmacy, grocery shops, cash machine and petrol station are all in the centre of Ovindoli. For office hours, events, food festivals and road notices, the municipal website is the reference.
Comune di OvindoliAt the end of May Rocca di Mezzo holds the Festa del Narciso, when the plateau is in flower. Summer brings food festivals and patron saint days in the villages nearby, while autumn puts mushrooms and truffles on every table in the area.
We know the area well and are glad to help you plan your days, whether that means a walk that works with children or a table for a large group. Write to us before or during your stay.
Write to us