Pescara 2009 will be the biggest sports festival that Abruzzo’s ever staged. Like the Olympics, the Mediterranean Games takes place every four years and is a multi-event spectacular - but it features 30 different sports, while at the Olympics, you can see only 26. Pescara 2009 will be only the third occasion that an Italian city has hosted the Mediterranean Games since they were first held at Alexandria in Egypt in 1951.

(Click on the headline title above to find out more about this sporting extravaganza in Abruzzo next year - and where and how to watch. Or even be a part of it !)

Abruzzo festa - invariably terrific. Abruzzo music - invariably not.

But just this once, on that warm October evening…we heard a band who were so outstandingly and blindingly good, they held us - and everyone else within earshot - happily spellbound.

(Listen to the band. Look at their pictures. Click on the headline title above.)

A walk in Abruzzo can take you to snow-capped mountains with stunning views; along sandy beaches lapped by the Adriatic; or deep into a gorge at the heart of the Majella…the Spirito Sancto gorge in Fara San Martino - a short drive from your Abruzzo villa for two…a deep cleft leading into the heart of the towering mountains that loom over the town.

(For more - with pictures - click on the headline title above)