Rocca Calascio (AQ)

The castle of Rocca Calascio (Roccacalascio) is a building whose ruins rise above the  village of Calascio, a small village in inland Abruzzo. Of this castle, which reached its greatest splendour around the 15th century, the first foundations are dated as far back as around the year 1000. The first documented records of its construction date from 1380.

Today what remains of the castle consists of numerous ruins around a fortification proper with four round towers. In the centre of the structure rises a square keep, still in a good state of preservation, which served as a watchtower.

To get to Calascio and its rocca you can come from nearby Barisciano or, alternatively, from Santo Stefano di Sessanio.

From the village of Calascio you drive up the road with its wide bends to a small car park, beyond which you have to continue on foot.

From here you climb up along the little lanes of the rocca. You reach a small square where you will easily find the Rifugio della Rocca, an excellent restaurant where you can book rooms and apartments in Rocca Calascio itself. You carry on climbing through narrow alleys and little flights of steps. The houses of this rocca are almost all uninhabited and being restored.

You climb until, outside the little village, you pick up a narrow mule track that will lead you to the church of Santa Maria della Pietà. The view towards the Gran Sasso is very interesting. In the distance rises the bulk of Corno Grande and the eastern chain of the massif.

Beyond the church of Santa Maria della Pietà (in an excellent state of preservation) you carry on, still climbing the mule track, which will take you to the highest part of the ruins and the fortification.

An evocative place, known to many as a film set for Ladyhawke and The Name of the Rose, it is certainly one of the castles to visit on a short family trip in Abruzzo.

For eating or sleeping nearby, on the road that climbs from Santo Stefano di Sessanio to Campo Imperatore, there is the Rifugio del Lago Racollo.