It’s rare when the most common is everyone’s favourite, but this is the case with the poppies in Abruzzo, Italy. Even when facing stiff competition from the mass of wildflowers and orchids that can be found on an Abruzzo spring day, poppies, officially regarded as weeds, are the flowers that most people mention after visiting.

Perhaps it is down to how they run riot up & down the hills in Abruzzo, pulling you to walk in the meadows and tugging at your heart as you see their wind dance amongst the wheat.

It could be the intoxicating contrast of colour and texture against the spikes of wheat as it mellows from its teenage green to crisp yellow, the poppies their scarlet crumpled women, with their paper thin blooms and flighty silky dark long lashes fluttering as they running amok against their ever-so-straight furrows.

Poppy love or poppy porn it depends on your imagination, but for admirers of the green on red version we advise visiting Abruzzo in May for a rich display.

Author: Sam Dunham

Sam is a very lucky midlife 'mamma' to A who is 11 and juggles her work as a self-employed freelance travel and food web content manager and copywriter and EFL teacher - she is the founder of English in the Woods. She is the co-founder of the social enterprises: The Abruzzo Blogger Community and Let's Blog Abruzzo. She is currently writing the book 'Abruzzo: Folk and Food.