Overview
It is a journey in search of an ancient and agrarian time that you will experience traveling through the Aterno Valley: it is a territory that extends below the arenaceous spurs of the Monti della Laga. The river deeply carves it with its flow and creates a narrow and articulated valley floor.
You can see a lot of woods, particularly beech and turkey oak forests, among cultivated fields and pastures, hay meadows and vegetable gardens, surrounded by small valleys.
You are in the province of L'Aquila, in a patch that reminds you of Arcadia (the Greek region once narrated by bucolic poets), along the road that leads you into the splendor of the Sirente Velino Regional Park and to Fagnano Alto.
The village is a single community made up of tiny settlements spread over the terraced slopes to the top of the valley. It is a territorial organization that derives from its history, back in the days when it was probably a Vestine "pagus" with its various aggregates of houses and land, and whose information is available since the 12th century.
So get ready to reach the various realities, jumping from one side of the valley to the other.
In Corbellino, nestled on a plateau near Vallecupa, site of the town hall, spot the ruins of a church and convent dedicated to San Sebastiano, dating from the 16th and 17th centuries; in Opi and Campana, in an elevated position, admire the Benedictine churches of San Massimo and San Giovanni, respectively, as well as a mill near the Aterno River. In Castello, there are substantial ruins of the fortified village with its tower, the gateway equipped with a drawbridge and secondary gates, as well as the remains of the 16th-century church of Santa Maria. This is the time in which an epigraph testifies that the community of Fagnano consisted of 10 villages and was a fief of the Alexandrians.
In Ripa, you will find the religious monuments dedicated to Sant'Antonio, San Vittorino and San Rocco in which, if you are lucky enough to find the church accessible, you can admire a gilded copper processional cross of the Sulmonese school, dating from the 14th century, which is among the most interesting in the region. Then in Pedicciano, in addition to the small church of Santa Lucia, you will find rural structures of terracing with dry-stone, nearby the village.
Then if you want to go for a hike, take the road that leads to Pagliare di Fagnano up to the ancient Via Poplica Campana, from which a network of roads and mule tracks expand and these are excellent for walking and horse riding. Here you can see in various spots the typical Roman pavement or the dry stone walls that have been surrounding it for two thousand years as well as an ancient Roman cistern in the middle of the mountain ridge above Campana.
These are stories of civilizations and agricultural communities, whose lives have made the countryside fertile for thousands of years, each one with its own beliefs, its own saints, its own traditions, all in one gigantic human puzzle that continues to fascinate.
You can find that pastoral and rural zero kilometre of the land of Fagnano Alto at the table with its good products, such as truffles, saffron, legumes, local sausages, and lamb meat.