Where the geometric fields of the Fucino now stretch lay Italy's third-largest lake: the draining willed by Alessandro Torlonia and completed in 1878 — among nineteenth-century Europe's greatest hydraulic feats — gave the Marsica a fertile plain and Avezzano its destiny as its capital. The Tunnels of Claudius, the Roman galleries of the first imperial attempt, can still be visited.
Levelled by the 1915 earthquake, the city was reborn modern around the Orsini-Colonna castle. Today the Fucino also hosts one of Europe's major space centres: from potato fields to satellites, without losing the Marsican accent.
Near Avezzano
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
