As of: March 9, 2024, 4:42 p.m
By: Moritz Bletzinger
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Winter in Abruzzo: What once attracted countless tourists is no longer attractive for holidaymakers today.
© Bruno D Amicis/Imago
“La fine è vicina”, the end is approaching in Italy.
Regions that were once magnets for ski tourists are now on the brink.
In some cases nothing works anymore.
Subiaco – mud and mud where white powder snow once beckoned.
A sad picture in the middle of Italy.
For decades, Lazio was considered the largest ski base in the country, but now mountain sports in the region are on the verge of extinction.
Ski tourism in Lazio is on the brink: lifts on Monte Livata have not been in operation for a year
The lifts on Monte Livata (1,429 meters high) have been standing still for a full year, and the slopes on the hills around Rome remain empty.
It does snow every now and then, but just not enough.
“The March snow won’t stay,” Maurizio Monaco tells the newspaper
La Repubblica
.
He owns the restaurant “Il Cristallo di neve”, one of the few inns that is even open at the beginning of March.
“It's sixteen degrees outside, it feels like late spring.” There were ten centimeters in the morning, but that's not nearly enough.
The first stones can be seen after the first descent, explains Monaco.
“We are closing the mountain”: drought a catastrophe for regions in Italy
“There are no ski holidays here anymore, we are closing the mountain,” is what was written at one of the most popular tourist bars in the town, the “Locanda di Mamma Peppina”.
The operators gave up and the owners changed.
The restaurant is only open on weekends.
The devastating climate change is not only affecting Lazio.
In recent years, Roman skiers have already migrated to Abruzzo, but the slopes there too are now brown and green.
The drought in Italy is a catastrophe for the entire Apennines.
In winter there is no snow for tourists, in summer there is no water for the fields.
“We spend 12,000 euros a year on water alone,” Monaco tells the newspaper.
In Monta Livata there is neither running water nor a reservoir.
Houses are supplied with tank trucks.
That's why snow cannons can't save the dry slopes there; that would hardly be ecologically justifiable anyway.
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Ski vacation in Italy: Abruzzo is losing tourists
An involuntary change is coming to the region; it has been announced for a long time and is gradually developing.
Winter tourism will have to change radically, the locals know that.
Bookings for the Campo di Felice ski area in l'Aquila have fallen by 60 percent, explains plant manager Vincenzo Fiaschetti at
La Repubblica
.
Skiing is still possible here, but it's not nice.
“The skier wants to see everything around him white, otherwise he won't come,” says Fiaschetti.
(moe)