Girl With a Suitcase

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In this article I would like to give you some suggestions on a possible itinerary for a driving holiday in Italy. As I said in the previous post, we can ideally divide an “Italy on the road” holiday in two main categories: the west coast and the east coast. Each one means about 1500km and a 14 hours drive, so unless you want to spend all your holiday in the car, it would be better to choose a specific area and visit thoroughly that one. As we had only one week available but we wanted to really enjoy the holiday, we had to choose a very limited part of Italy to travel through:

Our choice was to drive from the northern area of Marche region, where Urbino and Fano are, down through the coast until Abruzzo, where we wanted to do some trekking on Majella National Park’s mountains, then passing by Molise and ending in the wonderful Gargano, in Puglia.

Our first target was actually to get to the very end of Puglia, where the famous Salento is located, well-known to be a seaside paradise as good as Sardinia. But when we started planning our itinerary, it was soon clear that we would have needed at least a week more to see all the things we wanted to see on the way and to reach and fully enjoy Salento. It was kind of a surprise for me, but from the Gargano National Park in northern Puglia to northern Salento (Brindisi) it is a more than 4 hours drive! It is a lot if you consider that it probably takes about 6 hours to drive directly from Fano to the Gargano area. So, that will be for another holiday…but what we saw is more than enough!

 

Do you want to see the “movie” of this holiday? Watch the video here!

 

 

1. The first stop we decided to do was in the northern part of Abruzzo, in a nice place called Torre del Cerrano, near the city of Pineto. It is a beautiful protected sea area, with long sandy beaches and clean and beautiful waters.

It’s a very nice place where to spend a day: the water is warm and clearer than in the northern areas, the beaches are long and perfect for a walk, with a lovely pine forest just behind, and on top of this all stands the beautiful tower you can see in the picture. This area is a WWF protected zone because it is one of the only places in Italy where this cute bird can nest:

It is a nice, small, funny bird which you’ll probably see jumping around the beach. Some areas of the beach, with beautiful sandy dunes, are restricted to people, to let this animal to do his nest and because some rare species of flowers live there. Here you can find all the information about this little bird and this beautiful area.

2. Then we packed our stuff again and we made our way through the mountains, until the Majella National Park.

This area of Italy is full of beautiful national parks, maybe the most famous being the Abruzzo National Park. We opted for Majella because it was nearer and from the pictures we saw, it seemed very beautiful. We stopped in Caramanico Terme for 2 nights, and the second day we did a long trekking (more than 8 hours) in its valleys. The trail we did was the longest one in the Orfento Valley, a big circle that brought us through all the most beautiful woods and rivers of the park, and it was amazing. We had been told it was one of the most interesting, but in the park there are a lot of different areas to explore, and tons of interesting places like caves, waterfalls, rivers, mountains…you can have a look at all the possible trails here.

One of the best parts of the trail was the last one, where the trail meets a narrow, clear river and follows it for a while. There are beautiful sceneries and interesting viewpoints, and a difficult but beautiful part where you walk on a slippery “cliff” upon the river, with a very narrow street under your feet and just a rope on the rocks to prevent you from falling. Kind of adventurous!

My advice if you want to visit this park: plan it in advance, look for informations and trails, and make good use of the Info Points you can find almost in every city in the park: we were very lucky and found a nice, competent girl who helped us a lot and explained us patiently all the possible trails.

Oh, and as you are in Abruzzo don’t forget to try the tasteful arrosticini, an amazing kind of grilled shish kebab made with sheep meat!

3. After some mountain time, we headed back to the seaside, destination Gargano. Less known than its neighbor Salento, the Gargano area is WONDERFUL: it’s full of natural beauties, beautiful cities upon the cliffs, and has an amazing sea. Moreover, from here (and from Termoli in Molise, if you want to make this stop before) leaves the ferry to one of italian paradises: Tremiti Islands. We stopped here for 4 days, because in this little space there are so many beautiful things to see! Firstly, before Rodi Garganico there are two small salty lakes that are very interesting to see and visit. The land strip separating Varano lake from the sea is well worth a visit, because you can easily pass from the lake to the seaside, and it’s a really beautiful area.

Second, make sure you visit the Foresta Umbra (that means “Shadow forest” and has nothing to do with Umbria region). You can spend a day on its trails, lost in so many different shades of green that you wouldn’t even imagine they would exist. You can also see a group of deers from very near, because some of the population is confined into a restricted area and they are well visible from the street.

As you are there, pass by the small city of Vico sul Gargano: its historical center is the kind you can’t easily find nowadays, the houses are still the old, stone ones of centuries ago, and life seems to be staying still like then.

But the most wonderful places you can see in the Gargano area are for sure Peschici and Vieste. 

Trust me when I say YOU CAN NOT MISS PESCHICI! This amazing white city was built upon a tall cliff around its beautiful old castle. The castle can be visited for only 3€, an incredibly low price if compared to similar stuff around Italy: it has been turned into a torture museum, but if you don’t like seeing this kind of things don’t miss a visit either, because at the end of the walking tour (very short) you’ll be able to go out on a beautiful terrace on top of the cliff, and the view you’ll enjoy from there is unique.

The best advice for this kind of small, beautiful cities is only one: get lost. Get lost into the narrow street and let them surprise you with the unexpected view of the sea at the end of them. Get lost into the people and the smells and the tastes of this beautiful land. Just wander around and breath in. Peschici is magic. 

Vieste, too, is really worth a visit: it is the same style of Peschici, but it is bigger and unfortunately its beautiful fortress was turned into a military area and it is not accessible…such a shame. Again, you’ll be amazed by the small white houses Greek style and the little, narrow streets with a final sea overview.

And before leaving, don’t forget to visit the symbol of this city: the Pizzomunno. If you get out from the city center and continue south, you’ll see it just where the cliff ends. A big, tall, white rock standing just beneath the city, as a Guardian who came out from the sea to take care of the town. You haven’s seen Vieste if you haven’t seen the famous Pizzomunno and taken a picture with it!

If you have time, and want to do some sport while enjoying the natural beauties of this paradise, go south toward a beach called Baia di Campi (and prepare yourself for a breath-taking view from the street).

On this beautiful stone beach there is a canoe rental, and with it you can paddle up or down the coast and discover the many beautiful sea caves of the area: they are amazing! You can also pay 20€ per person and make a “sea cave tour” with a big boat that will bring you to the same places, but you won’t be able to go into many of them and you’ll be stuck with hundreds of people on the boat. In my opinion, paddling alone through the coast is a much better way of spending your time and money if you like this kind of activity! Actually, all the little towns in the Gargano area are worth a visit if you have time, but these are for sure the MUST-DO of a holiday here!

4. As I said before, you can choose between Termoli and one of the Gargano’s cities to take a ferry to the amazing Tremiti Islands. 

Again, don’t miss this trip if you are in the area, because they are really beautiful and the water over there is so clear and colorful you won’t believe your eyes! They consist of four islands: Capraia is a marine reserve and is accessible only to biologists, Cretaccio is just a big rock, San Nicola and San Domino are the biggest ones.

Your ferry will probably bring you to San Nicola, where you can visit a beautiful ancient fortress that will give you amazing views over the other islands and the sea.

Unfortunately, visiting the fortress you will also admire a clear example of bad management during maintenance works…I don’t know what kind of problem did they have and I will pretend to believe it was an unfortunate case, but maintenance tools, horrible red strips, cables and tubes where everywhere and where really ruining the atmosphere. At least some of them became a house for funny creatures…

When you are done visiting the fortress and you want to have a bath in that amazing sea, please, please, please…don’t stop at San Nicola beach in the middle of boats and ferries. Please!!!! You can take a ferry that will bring you to the other island, San Domino, for 5€, or (and this is what I did and I suggest you do too) pay 15€ and take a one hour tour that will bring you all around the islands: it will give you a good glimpse of the area, it will allow you to see some good spots where to have a bath later, it will bring you to some sea caves (but you won’t get into them unfortunately, this was a little annoying) and finally it will stop upon the submerged statue of Padre Pio. Not kidding! There is this huge statue of the Saint (4 meters tall) under 10 meters of water in front of San Nicola island, and if you are good with holding your breath you can try to give him a submerged high-five. :D

Finally, the tour-boat will leave you on the island of San Domino, where you can choose how to pass your last hour on the island (yes, that’s it, you arrive there around 11.30am and leave at 4pm, so there is not a lot of time). You can stop on the first beach, that will be busy, overcrowded and noisy. OR you can go to the adventure: if you follow the street for a bit you’ll see some trails directing towards the sea…well, if you really want to enjoy Tremiti islands, follow them! They will bring you in some hidden little paradises where the water is clear and green like an emerald, and the crowd of people can’t arrive easily. It will be you and MAYBE some other guy who decided to challenge the cliffs, and it will be WONDERFUL.

Finally, the best advice I could give you (the one I wanted someone gave me, actually): if you have time, spend one night on the island, because the time given by the daily tours is really not enough! San Domino is full of b&b, hotels and I’m sure there are also campings around, and there are a lot of trails you can spend the day on…I can only imagine how beautiful they can be! If you have a tent, I’d say that this is the perfect location for wild camping too! There is just so much vegetation, and so many hidden places…no one will ever find you!

5. Our descent south ended here, unfortunately for the Salento area which we didn’t see. But we found out some pretty amazing places on the way back, too! We stopped again in Abruzzo, in the very south, near Molise region, in a place called Punta Penna. Just passed Vasto, exit the highway and make your way towards the sea…this area is probably one of the best in the region! It is another marine reserve, like Torre del Cerrano, but here the landscape is very different…you will have to pass through an amount of narrow dusty streets in the middle of a rich vegetation, then you’ll find yourself on a very long stone beach. If you feel like having a little walk to discover the place, park your car north of Punta Penna and walk from there south. In the beginning you will find yourself on a large stone beach, with a nice clear water and the view of a weird wood construction upon the sea in the distance: it is a “trabucco”, a typical fisherman’s building from where they used to throw their nests in the water.

Unfortunately now it is closed, but seeing it is still very nice. So, walk towards it and start climbing the hill following the small trail in front of you…on the top you will have a great view of the bay and of Punta Penna, which you will see south, and over a huge, never ending sun-flowers field!

Keep on walking, and eventually after a parking lot you will see a lateral street that will bring you to the actual bay of Punta Penna. Here the water is amazing, clear, beautiful, of an intense shade of blue, with rocks and cliffs coming out from the sea.

This is the perfect place for a bath, trust me! On the beach you will also notice a very particular kind of building…with the wooden sticks found in the nearby vegetation, some persons have built nice, little “houses” to repair themselves from sun and wind, and some of them were also furnished! The nicest one I saw had some cute shell strips hanging from the entrance, and a beautiful hand-written sign upon them: “Welcome“. So nice!

Just avoid looking south very much, from this point…unfortunately this amazing bay had a horrible, smoky industry built just upon the cliff behind it. Such a shame, I know…but just look in front of you and pretend it doesn’t exist!

6. The last stop we did on our way back was in the middle of the Marche region…this region is really long and has a lot of different areas inside it, so even if we left from Fano (in the northern part) there were zones in the centre/south of the region we didn’t know at all. An area that is really worth a visit is the Mount Conero Park! It is represented by the whole area extending around a small mountain, Mount Conero, which descends into the sea as a beautiful, tall cliff…there are no beaches in the area, except for some that are really small and obviously overcrowded, so the best thing to do if you want to enjoy its beautiful water surrounded by nature and vegetation, is to follow one of the numerous trails which bring to the sea and lay down on the typical white, plain rocks around the cliffs.

I’ve been told the best place to go to is Porto Novo, in the northern side of the mountain. It seems like over there the water is clear and the sandy beach is pure white, but it’s not a very good idea to go there in high season: its fame tends to call tourists from all around and make it really crowded…so we didn’t even try. We opted for Sirolo, on the southern part, a small town built on the hill upon the sea. There are no beaches in Sirolo, it’s not even at sea level actually, but from there a lot of trails lead down to it.

So leave home your flip-flops and wear some trekking shoes on your swimsuit, you won’t regret it! What you’ll find at the end is the most similar thing to a beach the Conero area can offer: a huge and long strip of white rocks above a bright blue sea, and behind it a very tall cliff (from which the bravest always make spectacular jumps of 8m or more).

So this is it: after this stop we made our way home in less than 2 hours. It was a great holiday, combining the freedom of driving our own car, which let us go everywhere we wanted and stop every time we felt like doing so, with the security of having a tent with us, so that we never had to book in advance a room with a consequent loss of freedom!

I hope this article will be useful, if anyone should ever try this itinerary I expect him/her to write me a feedback ;)

Do you have other fav itineraries in Italy? Are you experienced “driving holiday-ers”? Then leave a comment!

Ciao!