Ladyhawke: Filming Locations in Italy

The film opens with Phillipe Gaston, a young thief, caught by the Bishop's guards at an inn, until the former captain Etienne of Navarre arrives and rescues him. The attempted arrest and the meeting with Navarre were shot at the old settlement of Monterano, near Rome. Today it is a ghost town on a tufa hill inside a nature reserve, and its ruins have served as a set for many Italian and foreign films.

Visitor guidance: The ruins lie inside the Monterano regional nature reserve, in the municipality of Canale Monterano.

On the road Navarre fights off the guards, and both he and his hawk are wounded by crossbow bolts. The hawk's wounding was filmed on the high plateau of Campo Imperatore in Abruzzo, a prominent exterior location of the film. The wide Apennine meadow has been used in more than twenty films, so the whole plateau is the setting rather than one spot.

Location precision: Sources name the plateau as a whole, not the exact meadow of the scene; the pin marks the plateau.

Visitor guidance: The plateau is inside the Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park, in the province of L'Aquila.

Phillipe carries the wounded hawk to the ruined castle of the old monk Imperius, where he finds the cursed Isabeau. The monk's refuge is Rocca Calascio, a ruined fortress on a mountaintop; the production added crowns to its towers. At about 1,460 metres it is the highest fortress in the Apennines. It was never rebuilt after the earthquake of 1461, which is why it still looks like a ruin in the film.

Visitor guidance: The fortress sits above the village of Calascio, in the Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park.

Navarre keeps riding towards Aquila, intent on killing the Bishop. In the original film the town is the real Aquila, which the Italian dub renames Aguillon. The distant exterior view of the town, however, is Castel del Monte, a village in the Gran Sasso national park listed among the most beautiful villages of Italy. It lies a few kilometres from Rocca Calascio.

Location precision: The film's Aquila is a stand-in; the pin marks the village of Castel del Monte, not one specific viewpoint.

Visitor guidance: A small mountain village in the province of L'Aquila.

In the finale, Navarre rides into the cathedral to kill the Bishop, and a now-human Isabeau enters and stops him as the curse is broken. The church of the final scene is San Pietro in Tuscania, though its interior was rebuilt at Cinecittà for filming. The real church stands on a hill, probably the site of the Etruscan acropolis.

Location precision: Only the exterior is the real church; the interior seen in the film was rebuilt at Cinecittà.

Visitor guidance: The church stands on a hill in Tuscania.