SULMONA AND ITS CONFETTI
Flanked by bleak mountains and bristling with legends about its famous son, Ovid, SULMONA is a comfortably affluent provincial 
settlement that owes its wealth to gold jewellery and sugared almonds. Although it sustained some damage during the 2009 earthquake, most of it was internal, and it remains an atmospheric little place, with a dark tangle of a historical centre lined with imposing palaces and overshadowed by the mountainous bulk of the Majella. Sulmona’s sights can be seen in a morning, but the surprisingly undervisited town makes a useful base for exploring the surroundings-from ancient hermitages to towns with snake-infested festivals.
NOT TO BE MISSED IN SULMONA
- Corso Ovidio– Sulmona’s main street, cuts through the centre from the park-side bus terminus, leading up to Piazza XX Settembre. From here, Sulmona’s sights are within easy strolling distance
- The Annunziata-a Gothic-Renaissance palazzo adjoining a flamboyant Baroque church
- Museo del Costume Popolare-devoted to local costumes and transhumance-the practice of moving sheep to summer pastures-along with examples of work by Sulmona’s Renaissance goldsmiths, a trade that continues here to this day, as evidenced by the number of richly supplied jeweller’s shops along the Corso
- Museo Civico-has local sculpture and paintings from the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries
- Museo Archeologico-shows the excavations of a Roman villa inhabited from the first century BC to the second century AD, abandoned suddenly along the many other houses in the valley when a landslide or an earthquake struck.
- Piazza del Carmine-where the hefty Romanesque portal of San Francesco della Scarpa was the only part of the church solid enough to withstand the earthquake od 1703;
- The Gothic Aqueduct-built to supply water to the town and power to its wool mills;
- Piazza Garibaldi-Home to the town’s market on Wednesday and Saturday, Piazza garibaldi is a vast square dominated by the austere,often snow streaked slopes of Monte Morrone;
- Sulmona’s Confetti-As well as gold, the Corso’s shops are full of Sulmona’s other great product- confetti-a confection of sugared almonds or chocolate wired into eleborate flowers and other creations with the aid of coloured cellehane,crepe paper and ribbons.They are often given to wedding guests as little token of appreciation.
- Fabbrica Confetti Pelino-this is the most famous sugar confectionary in town where you can learn about confetti manufacture; here the Museo d’Arte Confettiera displays an assortment of antique sweet-making machines and a sixteenth-century laboratory,complete of all manner of mills,toasters and polishing machines;
Join us for a small group tour to discover this beautiful part of Central Italy- contact a member of our concierge team