Adriatic-Ionian Network of Authentic Villages
The territories involved in ADRIONET are filled with small authentic villages, often situated in remarkably beautiful locations, including fluvial basins, mountains, hills, rural peripheral or marginal areas, in certain cases at risk of depopulation and abandonment, due to spatial territorial development models characterized by intense urbanization and socio-economic polarization.

These villages represent an asset of primary social, cultural and environmental relevance, a deposit of local micro-histories and identities, productive knowhow, food traditions and so on, that should be more clearly and intensively involved in regional strategies and actions of preservation and valorisation, through models of sustainable settlement that enhance existing cultural and natural heritage (and related landscapes).

Main project change is to overcome current marginalization, fragmentation and under-valorisation of these territories by setting up a Transnational Network of “Authentic Villages”, aimed at promoting a preservation of natural and cultural assets by pursuing a development based on social, environmental and economical sustainability, with at the centre the quality of life and wellness of local populations, as pre-condition for a pervasive care of landscapes concerned as well as of attraction and satisfaction of visitors.

All this will be integrated in the innovative concept of “hospitable community”, in which a community itself takes over the role of engine of local development and of organizer, around its resources and values, of a diffused hospitality.

To achieve this, a Transnational Action Plan is designed as a roadmap and models for setting up “authentic villages” are defined.

Pilot Actions will test common solutions of territorial enhancement based on “authentic village” models.

Transnational cooperation will enable small scattered villages of the ADRION region to be networked and assume transnational visibility.