Abruzzo has a lot of saints, but only one who briefly ran the Catholic Church and then walked away from it. Pietro Angelerio, better known as Pietro da Morrone and later Pope Celestine V, spent most of his life as a hermit in the caves of the Maiella and Morrone mountains before being elected pope in 1294, at around eighty-five, and resigning less than five months later to return to that same solitude. He never made it back. His successor, Boniface VIII, had him confined, and he died in custody in 1296.

It's a strange, quiet story to sit at the centre of a region's identity, and yet it does. To understand why, it helps to look at what he left behind here, and at the trail that now lets you walk through it yourself.

What Celestine V still means to Abruzzo

Abruzzo is a region defined by its mountains as much as by its people, and Celestine V is the figure who ties the two together. He wasn't a noble or a scholar. He was a shepherd's son who chose the hardest, most remote hermitages in the Apennines, places carved directly into rock faces, reachable only on foot, and lived there for decades before anyone outside Abruzzo had heard his name.

That choice, repeated at the height of his power when he gave up the papacy to return to it, is what Abruzzesi tend to point to when they talk about him. Not the coronation in L'Aquila, not the Bull of Forgiveness he issued there, but the refusal that came after: a man who had reached the top of the medieval world and decided the mountains mattered more. It's a story that fits comfortably alongside everything else this region values: self-sufficiency, a wariness of excess, a preference for the quiet and the real over the grand.

Dozens of hermitages across the Maiella and the Morrone still carry his memory: Sant'Onofrio all'Orfento, Santo Spirito a Maiella, San Bartolomeo in Legio, San Giovanni all'Orfento. Most are still reachable only in the way he reached them, on foot.

Walking his path: the Cammino di Celestino

Since 2008, that network of hermitages has been connected into a proper long-distance trail, the Cammino di Celestino, and it has since grown into multiple routes.

The classic route runs about 90 to 95 kilometres over six stages, roughly five to six days of walking, from the Badia Celestiniana in Sulmona to the Abbey of San Liberatore a Maiella, near Serramonacesca. The stages generally run Sulmona to Pacentro, Pacentro to Caramanico Terme, Caramanico to Decontra, Decontra to the Hermitage of Santo Spirito a Maiella near Roccamorice, Roccamorice onward, and finally to Serramonacesca. Along the way, you pass the rock hermitages of the Maiella, including stretches with real elevation gain and some exposed sections, particularly around San Giovanni all'Orfento at over 1,200 metres. This is the route Touring Club Italiano certified in 2022, checking it for waymarking, accessibility and services along the way. Walkers who complete it can collect stamps in a Charta Peregrini, the pilgrim's credential, at hermitages and towns along the route.

The Cammino Grande di Celestino is the newer and considerably longer version, 202 kilometres over twelve stages, starting at the Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio in L'Aquila, where Celestine was crowned, and finishing on the Adriatic coast at Ortona. It follows the Aterno valley, climbs into the Maiella geopark, and then descends gradually toward the sea, tracing something closer to the full arc of his story rather than just the mountain years.

Both routes are rated for hikers with some experience rather than absolute beginners: expect unpaved mountain paths, real ascents, and stretches with limited services, alongside sections that pass through towns where you can resupply and sleep properly. The best windows are spring through autumn; the higher stages can hold snow and ice well into late spring and are best avoided in deep winter.

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