history

Three Regions in one day

Posted by

0

Heading south from Citta Sant’Angelo, through Ambruzzo’s rolling hills with snow-flashed mountains in the distance, it is easy to forget that this is a region of honest, hardworking people who work their land to produce food to generate an income. Throughout history they have left their mark on the landscape in a mosaic of colours & shapes. Tans & pale yellows of fields that have relinquished their crops of oats & wheat, contrast with others where farmers have ploughed back any goodness to reveal clumped lines of bare-browned earth. The tinted greens of vineyards combine with scattered olive groves to add a further dimension to the view, along with the occasional wooded valley & stoned, hilltop settlement.

Sulmona is a brief respite, happy to show off its vast piazza where, throughout July, the town’s neighbourhood’s march off against each in flag-throwing competitions. As if this was not enough, the square is lined with ancient churches, a duomo, medieval buildings, an aqueduct & a crescent of stone steps that leads up to even more historic delights. These include several producers of candy-covered ‘confetti’. It is an Italian custom to present guests at weddings, birthday & communion celebrations & anniversaries a small box containing these multi-coloured favours.

Molise is a small region further to the south. Here the landscape begins to change with more, larger fields of oats & wheat & fewer lines of vines & scattered olive trees. The harvested land looks exhausted & fed up, cropped out & blasted by the sun. There are larger clumps of deciduous woodlands & even proper woods which gradually die out to be replaced by a flatter land of soft rolling hills.

Campobosso, the region’s capital, is situated on one of these. Having spent time in the historic centre, I’m going to rename it ‘Steep Stepped Basso’ ‘cause there are a lot of them laddering up to the top.

Once into Puglia, the landscape changes again. This must be the bread basket or ‘the pizza dough basket’ of Italy. Any hills have been squashed down onto a vast flat plain where oats & wheat are being combined into huge waiting trailers & enormous super-vehicles, raring to convoy them out to vast grain silos & on to mills & production areas.

Across the flatness of the dusty plain, the land rises again. It’s as if a line has been drawn in the sand; the yellow, dusty plain comes to an abrupt end where regiments of ancient olive trees take over, standing to attention at the foot of, & up the slopes of, the hills that hide San Giovanni Rotonda & other settlements.

A day down the Trabocchi Coast

Posted by

0

Penne marks the spot where we hit the Adriatic. Set back a few km from the sea, this is another ancient, hilltop village/town carrying the scars of the 2009 earthquake.

Once around Pescara, rebuilt following WWII, Ortona marks the start of the Trabocchi Coast. It was here in 1943, that Allied forces, working their way up through Italy, battled it out with Axis forces defending the Gustav Line that stretched across the width of Italy. In the resulting attack by Canadian troops, the town was obliterated so that all you see today, from the duomo to the tall, blocks of apartments, is a reconstruction of this historical port.

On the outskirts, the road hugs the coast with the railway, the main road & the dual carriageways way running through rich farmland of harvested oats, ancient olive groves & tall, trellises of grasping vines. Beach clubs, bathing areas, & mediocre holiday accommodation & assorted bars & cafes are evidence of the tourist holiday season.

The only saving grace is the Trabocchi that line this part of the coast. These are ancient fishing machines, set on stilts and attached to the land by long walkways. Antennae hold up a huge net which is winched down to the water and then back up, with the catch held within it.

It is unclear how they originated but one theory is that the local farmers built them to bring in & take out produce & equipment. When times got hard, they used these structures & nets to catch fish to supplement their land income. Many have now been converted into restaurants but these tend to be rather expensive tourist traps. We ate at one on terra firma – cuttlefish & chilli starter, grilled anchovies, seabream, clams & octopus spaghetti…oh yes!! Top of the world.

Our journey finishes at Vasto, a charming, historic town with loads of character & little evidence of earthquake or war damage. The duomo, palaces, castles, piazzas all have ancient origins. One small church down on the cliffs, has just one wall holding on to solid ground after the rest slid into the sea during a landslide in 1956.

The land of a thousand cranes

Posted by

0

Two places on the journey over are worth particular mention. In line with most settlements in the area, they were both affected by the terrible earthquake of 2009. L’Aquila was at the epicentre. 35 to 37 thousand people were made homeless & over 100,000 buildings destroyed. 309 people died, many children, & there were over 1500 casualties when the ‘quake hit in the early hours of the 6th April.

Today, there remains ample if evidence of this night. High cranes still dominate the skyline, giant preying mantises overhang scaffolded medieval buildings, Some appear pristine with freshly painted plaster coating reconstructed facades to the public, especially around the newly laid Piazza di Duomo, & others like the cathedral itself are just an empty shell of destruction.

Despite the renovation of many, much still remains to be done with hundreds of ancient buildings held up by stout timbers or thick, metal frames. Despite this, or maybe because of it, L’Aquila remains a fascination place to visit.

An important medieval town, within ancient walls, it has been an important centre for hundreds of years & is now the capital of the region. The Fountain of 99 Spouts, built in the 13th century, represented the number of powerful houses & estates in the area at the time.

It was chosen as the 2026 Centre of Culture in recognition of its cultural & historical importance. A university town, it has an exciting buzz to it after dark. With piazzas & streets echoing with laughter & conversation.

Santo Stefano di Sessanio is like chalk to L’Aquila’s cheese. A tiny village clinging to the crags & qcliffs of the Grand Sasso d’Italia, it is ancient in every respect but for the yellow framework of tall cranes performing similar work on devastated buildings. Nevertheless, it’s narrow, cobbled alleyways, scratching darkened routes around ancient stones, studded doorways & shuttered windows, give it a real medieval feel. Everything is in miniature, from the church to the café, from the tiny, dark gift shops to the small grocers & verandered restaurant. A special place with a special, timeless feel.

The cramped tiers of Paola’s ancient auditorium

Posted by

0

After the wonders of the mountains of Calabrian, it is back to the coast for a few days in Paola. Let me say at the start that Paola is utterly fascinating. It has grown up on the narrow strip of shore between the sea & the mountains. Beside the shore the modern part spreads in both directions with all the trappings of modern life – apartment blocks, schools, railway tracks & station. It doesn’t really count for much; just an ordinary, functional, modernish kind of town.

However, once through the arch into the first square, a delicious feast of ancient living awaits. with the old town spreading its tetra-blocked tendrils up against the perpendicular cliffs & gritty bedrock face of Calabria’s hard inside.

Our accommodation Is high up on the top tier of the balcony of some ancient theatre, dropping down tier by layer of concentric semi-circles, focused on the stage at the bottom formed by the duomo, a fountained piazza & celebration arch where all the historic action has taken place.

Running under the concrete piles of the top ring road, ancient, flaking tenements, some elegant, some requiring a bit of work, leave narrow spaces between their gloomy facades, so narrow that traffic lights are required to allow one line of vehicles through at a time.

This top road follows the contours of the cliffs surrounded by tall, grey-orche camouflaged, apartment buildings is connected to parallel tiers of lanes & alleys by a snakes & ladders set of interlacing stairs & steps.

It’s an easy decision to take the steps down to the centre of town. But it has to be remembered that there is always the coming back up. The steps are steep; going down takes 15 minutes; coming back up is an exhausting 30/45 minute work out. Who needs a gym membership? These lovely sprightly ladies have done it for decades, everyday of their lives.

Once inside this tangle of lanes & steps where time stops still, & the sun dares not shine but just appears in the distance as a promise that there is a way out, you can easily be overwhelmed by the past -. the stones, the tenements, the religious images painted on the walls, hanging washing, dark gloomy alleys, shadowed stairways, flaky facades & peeling doorways; they all present the past to those who live within and those who have the strength to traverse the stairwells.

Reminiscent of a Dickensian nightmare, it is a relief to emerge from the shadows into the brightness of an Italian spring.

Quintessentially French

Posted by

0

A circular route takes us into the high country. Narrow roads, so well maintained & surfaced clawed across the landscape to the far, faint horizon. Mixed woodland, girding its loins to begin the change from green to brown to bare, covers straight ridge lines and sharp-sided valleys across the spreading landscape in subtle shades and interlace their fingers like a congregation of parishioners about to settle into prayer.

The weather drops a very wet load on this land, particularly in winter when the snow & ice melt. Streams & rivers have cut & hacked away at the land over the years leaving evidence of the power at work in the form of gushing torrents, sharp ridge lines or bottomless ravines. Man does the best to cope with such obstacles, building bridges & settlements at suitable places in an attempt to tame it.

Villages are small and ancient; old lanes & trails, designed for another age when feet and the cart were the main form of transport, hug the valley sides or crawl to the top to peer over to follow the chicanes down to the distant settlement far down at the next crossing over a tumbling water course. In places, the old tracks can be seen cutting a bend or smooth modern tarmac has been layed over the ancient route, providing a wonderful course for speeding motorbikes. Settlements can be too small to even mention – a handful of houses clustered around a small church & maybe a graveyard, but some grew to be essential to folk of the time – around here it was to provide sanctuary and respite to those passing on the Pilgrim’s Trail.

St-Gervais-sur-Mare is a stunning little village that grew up in the 13th-century as a staging post on the route to Spain.

A largish village, it is dominated by the nave of the church of Saint-Gervai-Saint-Protais. Wide, ancient steps lead up past the arched doorway and historic dwellings to the ramparts & the château.

Peeking inside the historic church, an old lady follows us in and points out in local, incomprehensible French a side chapel containing a font made from the same marble as used in Versailles by French kings (I think!). She turns out to be the organist – having left through the front door, she appears up on the organ loft & proceeds to give a private rendition of some wonderfully poignant piece that echoes around this empty space, leaving emotions exposed and senses shredded.

The high spot of this place is the village square. stands on above a small river that runs through the middle of the settlement.

If any place is quintessentially French, it is here.

Elegant buildings form 3 sides, with the Post Office, two bars & a hotel tucked into one corner & at the other corner of the same side a second bar;

empty tables with rather ornate chairs, cushions piled up under cover, await ’the rush’ (although, I’m not sure there’s going to be one any time soon)

a war memorial reminds everyone of the nation’s past; shade is provided by staggered plane trees – high & impervious to sunshine & showers.

To complete the scene an old couple come out for a game of petanque, chatting away and traversing across the crunching stones between camouflaged trunks, clunking their boules as they go…. all so French!