Late April to mid-May is the best time to visit Abruzzo for a holiday or long weekend break; it is still untouched, wild, with nature at its most flirty.

The landscape is a textural riot with every imaginable petal & blossom open to announce the beginning of the warm weather softening the existing starkness of the Gran Sasso Mountains from where the snow has melted.   The softest purples, yellows & pinks fill the hedgerows, Apennine meadows and olive groves with centre stage taken by the mass of poppies that seem to burst from every available pocket of earth.  Delicate violets, anemones, buttercups and sky-blue forget-me-nots. “Occhi della Madonna”, gentians & peonies poke through in contrast to the bunches of white wisteria that dangle as a glorious canopy to shade them from the already powerful midday sun.

As the newborn lambs cavort next to their newly shorn mums, everyone is busy out in their fields harvesting the first crop of the season; sweet Favas (Broadbeans).   They make the perfect snack with a little of the local sharp and peppery virgin olive oil & Panepizza (a sort of open textured crusty slim version of focaccio) and a chilled flowery glass of Trebbiano. Of course there are a million things more, the birds, the bees, all back and playing in the newly bushy wild cherry trees but that is worthy of a post all to itself.

Abruzzo’s Colours of Spring

Author: Roddy Newlands

Roddy Newlands is an Associate Member of Life In Abruzzo, as well as antique book dealer and web and graphic designer. Abruzzo allows him to get his mountain-air fix, & satisfy his passion for pasta & panettone.