Saturday 6th June 2026 nr Castel del Monte, Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park, Apennine Mountains, Italy
Today we headed into the mountains. The scenery was just breathtaking, so many different shades of green!
This is a favoured route for motorcyclists and bicyclists and this being saturday had brought many of them out.
Honestly, who thought it was a good idea to cycle up a mountain!
We passed signs warning of animals and bears on the road, but didn’t get to see any, on the road or in the forests.
Can you believe there is still snow in the odd crevice here and there too!.
Our reason for this journey was a Stanley Tucci tv show, where he visited a butcher/restauant called Ristoro Mucciante in the mountains of Abruzzo.
The shop is on a huge meadow on a mountain plateau.
What’s great about it is that you buy your meat – sausages, kebabs chops etc – and then you take it outside and BBQ it yourself on the grills provided. The staff keep the BBQs lit and provide the cooking tools too.
Haha, what a great idea.
The weather was just perfect when we arrived late afternoon. So after parking up – your allowed to stay max of 2 nights – we wandered over to the shop.
And it was still busy. Loads of people, some in groups, a lot of bikers and all cooking their own lunch 
in an altogether jolly atmosphere.
Parker did a great job with some kebabs and sausages and even cadged a few raw bones for Meg to enjoy 
.
There was a constant flow of customers right up until closing time and then quite a few people pitched up little tents to stay the night.
It was a lovely sight. But, when the sun dropped down past the mountains the temperature dropped with it, from 20°+ to 10° 
. Not cold enough for us to need the heating on though .
This morning was just beautiful. Catching the sun coming over the mountains behind us and warming up those chilled campers, bless them. I was out at 6.30am taking pics and saw some guys shivering. I was tempted to offer a hot cuppa but then realised I’d have a queue forming so thought better of it!
The high plateau meadows dotted with wild flowers were glistening from overnight dew. Meg, now getting used to early morning beach walks was up and waiting expectantly for her morning stroll .
So off we wandered over to a monument we had passed yesterday just before the parkup. I had to put my trainers on for the first time in ages.
She was loving the freedom and the promise of lizards and moles as we made our way to the statues.
We were also offline as there was no internet access at all. To understand the monument plaque I decided to type the words into my phone to translate later 
. Apparently it is to commemorate those that have perished in the mountains, the subjects being a shepherd and his son. The shepherd’s family died in the winter storms of 1919 and he subsequently died of a broken heart.
There were lots of people arriving already in and on all manners of transport, even a big family setting up their own gazebo for a fun day. What a location!
We popped back up to the BBQ area after breakfast and bought some skewers and sausages for our dinner later before heading off back into the mountains for our next stop.
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