It is a municipality in the province of Teramo, overlooking the Adriatic Sea, between the rivers Tordino and Salinello. It consists of a Lido, which has developed since the last century, and in a main centre located in Paese Alto, of Roman origins and with important medieval characteristics. It features a wide sandy beach, a large fishing port and an efficient well equipped tourist yacht harbor.
Although the area was inhabited in prehistoric times, the origins of Giulianova date back to the period that immediately followed the conquest by Rome of the Adriatic area, with the foundation, around 290 B.C., of "Castrum Novum Piceno". Remembered as a powerful fortified center by Pliny, Ptolemy, Velleius Paterculus and Strabone, "Castrum Novum Piceno", that at the time already featured Imperial Spa baths, experienced a strong growth and the town's limits extended towards the sea until it reached a perimeter estimated by some historians in more than two kilometers. Abandoned after the barbarian invasions, it assumed the name of "Castrum Sancti Flaviani" in honor of the patriarch of Constantinople. After numerous raids and looting by the Saracens, the inhabitants returned to Giulianova and in the XVI century the city was reconstructed by Duke Giuliantonio Acquaviva, in honor of whom it took the name of "Julia Nova".
Among the sites of interest, not to miss:
- the Cathedral of St. Flaviano, built between the late XV and early XVI century in Renaissance style. The Church, with its giant dome, once one of the major community forums, dominates the city and can be admired from the sea with its blue-green ceramic tiles that reflect in the sun. Inside it preserves remains of the Holy Patriarch of Constantinople.
- the Shrine of Blessed Mary of Splendor, rebuilt in 1907 and ranked as one of the most important Italian churches, a place of religious pilgrimage and traditionally linked to the miraculous apparition of the Virgin, to a woodcutter named Bertolino, a native of the nearby village of Cologna.
- the Church of Santa Maria a Mare, an architectural jewel built in X-XI century with its richly carved portal;
- the XVI century Church of St. Anthony;
- the Church of St. Anne;
- the Chapel of noble Bartolomei Family, with bas-reliefs and sculptures of the artist Pagliaccetti;
- the Torrione known as "the White", the last remnant of the medieval walls that defended the city, now it houses the Archaeological Museum;
- the Kursaal, one of the first reinforced concrete buildings in Italy, originally designed in Neoclassical style and subsequently enriched by elements in Art Nouveau;
- The monumental Seafront, an artwork of the fascist period, built in 1936;
- the beach colony entitled to Rosa Maltoni Mussolini (1934);
- the noble palaces and the noble villas;
- the remains of a Roman villa with mosaic floors and baths.