A prehistoric landslide sealed off a stretch of the Sagittario river and left Abruzzo with a lake that photographs like nowhere else in the region: follow the Sentiero del Cuore to its lookout and the shoreline resolves into a near-perfect heart.
The village of Scanno, on the slopes above, held onto its own traditions longer than most Abruzzo towns, including a distinctive women's costume and a goldsmith's tradition still known for filigree work and the presentosa pendant. That mix of landscape and living tradition drew M.C. Escher to sketch the town in the 1930s and Henri Cartier-Bresson to photograph its women in 1951, images among the most reproduced in Italian travel photography. The lake itself is a forested basin at the mouth of the Sagittario gorges, better suited to a slow walk than a checklist stop, and the heart shape only appears from the marked viewpoint, not from the shore.
