What is the Cammino dei Briganti

Marsica and Cicolano are lands of forests, mountains and stories of brigands. In particular, the territory crossed by this path is a border territory, today between Abruzzo and Lazio, yesterday between the Papal State and the Bourbon Kingdom. The brigands lived on the border to pass from one side to the other depending on the threat. The brigands were not criminals, they were more like partisans, fighting against the invasion of the Sabaudis, who had forced the people to join the army. They were free spirits, who did not want to submit to the new masters, and for this reason they had gone underground. A story also made up of kidnappings, ransoms, and much violence. A story of 150 years ago. Today, the experience of the ancient travellers is re-proposed based on travelling on foot from village to village along this 7-day route, all well travelled, marked and with equipped staging posts. On this site you will find all the information you need to walk the Cammino dei Briganti alone or in company. Obviously, the path can also be walked in part, stage by stage. And you can rely on small family structures, but you can also experience the adventure of walking it in a tent.

Tools for walking it

There are currently two useful tools for walking the route: the guidebook, the map and the special issue of Meridiani Cammini.

1. The guidebook (6th edition updated June 2024): this is the most important tool, it contains everything you need to know, including small maps of the individual stages.
2. The official map, see here.

For more: Meridiani Cammini special Cammino dei Briganti, July 2020. Useful for further study. There is an enclosed map and many in-depth articles. To request from the Domus publisher or buy on the web.

Warnings

Warning n. 1

For all walkers: always book everything (sleeping and eating). Without reservations you may have big problems.

Warning n. 2

Important: some people walk the Cammino dei Briganti expecting something similar to the Francigena: very tamed nature, dirt roads running through fields, signposts at every crossroads, organisation built with public funding of millions of euro. None of this, guys! If you want this, go and walk the Francigena. Here, Abruzzi's nature is not tamed, more attention is needed, and a guidebook, which must be read and followed carefully, is absolutely INDISPENSABLE. This is why we invite you to walk the Path without haste, you need time to think!

In addition to the guidebook, you need the map, published in 2019 by Edizioni Il Lupo, which is essential for orientation. You will find it among other places at the Ufficio Salvacondotti in Sante Marie.

Warning n. 3

The Cammino dei Briganti was born from below, and needs everyone. It has had no public funding, unlike many walks that are much less popular than ours. It is a path that requires reciprocity. And it was born to help a disadvantaged territory that is depopulating, to help it survive by bringing economy. You do not pay a ticket to walk it, but we ask that everyone put something into this project. We ask you to help us keep it clean, to bring scissors and cut down the brambles or nettles in the stretches that tend to get undergrown, to make a bag collecting some rubbish and taking it back to the villages downstream, or if there is a crossroads where the direction is not clear and perhaps the signs have blown away, build a cairn of stones to help other walkers, in short, this path is made for generous walkers.

And speaking of generosity, this area needs a helping hand to survive, so be generous economically too, be supportive of the local family businesses (which are the ones who maintain the walk in their spare time, keeping it alive). If you come to walk it expecting tour operator-style services, you have the wrong Camino! This walk is done all together!

Warning n. 4

The Camino has been an unexpected success, and we do not have the adequate services to be always at your disposal to give you information. We therefore ask you not to write or phone us for information. We no longer have free time to answer you (the time we dedicate to keeping the path alive we take away from our work, our family, our private life), and we regret not answering if we receive questions. But the answers to your questions are all here, on the website, on the Facebook page, in the printed guide.

Have the patience to read carefully, you will find all the information you can. And only after you have read everything, and have not found an answer because your question is really special, then write to us. But be patient if we do not answer you or do so very late. Thank you for your understanding.

Warning n. 5 (2025)

In 2025, the Dante Orchard tent area at the end of stage 6 is closed.

Warning n. 6 (2025)

If you have problems finding space at the stage ends indicated in the guidebook, you can take some new variants, which are not in the guidebook. The first is the one that goes from Villerose to Spedino passing from below, along the Salto river, and thus touching on the villages of Grotti and Torano. You will then have various possibilities for sleeping, in the facilities at Villerose, Grotti and Torano.

If, on the other hand, you have problems sleeping in Cartore, where the classic route stops for two nights, we have prepared a variant that allows you to go from Spedino to Corvaro (where there is a structure or two), from here climb to Duchessa along a beautiful path that is now all well marked, and then descend on the second day from the lake to Cartore or directly to Rosciolo.

The use of the Cammino dei Briganti logo without authorisation is prohibited.