September 2014 in Puglia (week one - Orvieto to Peschici)

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Sunday, 31 August – We are packed and ready to go on the road again! We are spending the month of September touring the south of Italy. Our initial route, commencing in Orvieto, will take us eastward through Baschi, Amelia, Narni, Terni to Rieti where we plan to stop for lunch. After a siesta we plan to drive to L’Aquila where we have made a reservation in a small boutique hotel for two nights. L’Aquila is the Apennine mountain town near the epicentre of an earthquake measuring 6.3 that struck in April 2009 in which over 300 people died and much of the town centre, including a recently-built hospital, was destroyed. You might remember from the news coverage when then Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi held the G8 world economic summit there a few months later in July. He promised 8 billion Euro for reconstruction, as well as an ‘anti-Mafia’ overseer to monitor and protect the funding. It will be interesting to see what has happened in the intervening five years.

Monday, 1 September – The morning greeted us with gloomy grey weather and rain. After a final cleaning and preparation of the apartment for returning guests arriving this afternoon, we drove east via Baschi, Lugnano, Amelia, Narni and Terni to Rieti. Rieti is unremarkable and unmentioned in either of our guidebooks. We stopped here because it was about the correct distance from Orvieto for us to arrive around lunch time! On Mondays most Italian towns are very quiet; many of the stores remain closed. Rieti was no exception. A festival celebrating the Peppers of the World had concluded on Sunday. Display areas and stages and commercial stalls were being dismantled. We walked up to the main piazza and down the cobble stone central corso. Like all small Italian towns, Rieti has its share of beautiful churches and old buildings. We lunched at La Locanda Del Carro which was located on the very cute Piazza Santa Rufo. Also located on this piazza was a round marble statue base proclaiming to be the exact centre of Italy! There was, however, no World Traveller sign.

After lunch we continued driving on the scenic and twisting roads to L’Aquila. L’Aquila is a building site; its silhouette a forest of construction cranes. Driving up to the old town city centre we passed numerous residential and commercial buildings damaged by the 2009 earthquake. We parked on the edge of the old town and walked up to the main piazza. Every building we passed had been damaged by the earthquake. There were supports and ties of the buildings, scaffolding and strapping, nets, long tubes dumping rubble into skips. Many streets were closed off completely. There were very few buildings in which the renovations had been completed. We walked the entire length of the main corso up to Fort Spagnolo that overlooks the city. It is a massive fort encircled by a deep and wide moat. It too was damaged and one of its walls was hidden behind netting being repaired. There were very few visitors walking around the city and it appears that there is still no one living there. It reminded us of how we felt when walking around Pompeii – another city destroyed by the fury of nature with many lives lost! We were shocked and overwhelmed by the level and extent of the devastation that was still visible more than five years after the earthquake struck. We recalled watching the news reportage on the television and reading about it in the newspaper at the time, but that does not capture the sheer magnitude of the damage that occurred then.

The renovation of the historical centre of L’Aquila, we learned, was delayed in starting by the need to re-house people quickly. This mountainous area of Italy receives cold winters and snow. Thousands of new houses were built quickly around the perimeter of the city as a first priority. Afterwards, the many and various ‘experts’ debated and negotiated the ‘correct’ way of returning the historical centre to its former glory. The earthquake-professor suggests that the renovations will be complete in another 5 years only. We have made a mental note to return in 2020 to see the results!

Distance Driven Today: 180 km.

Tuesday, 2 September – We spent the night in a B&B in Santa Rufina, which is located less than 1 kilometre from the epicentre of the 2009 earthquake. The town, like all the small towns surrounding L’Aquila, is composed of damaged buildings shored up with braces and supports, construction work repairing other houses, and new builds usually slightly outside the towns and painted in bright colours. Our B&B was called La Prataline and was built in 2008. It is a yellow two story structure that was undamaged by the earthquake. Its owner works at the university in L’Aquila in the area of earthquake monitoring and prediction. His house was the only one in the entire town of Santa Rufina that survived the earthquake intact and without damage. We feel safe here. He prepared us a large breakfast with meats and cheese, hard boiled eggs and yoghurt, sourdough bread and plum tart, and two types of coffee. We filled up and headed out to explore the area. Santa Rufina is in a valley at the edge of the Sirente Regional Park. We drove south up the mountain route, stopping at Rocco di Cambio and Rocco de Mezzo. This area is a winter ski resort area. The mountains are gentle and heavily wooded. The drive was very scenic, although not nearly as spectacular nor dramatic as the vistas we had witnessed while journeying down the Andes mountain range in the spring. We were stopped once as a large herd of sheep crossed the roadway. We haven’t experienced this typically-Irish phenomenon for years; it seems sheep herders are the same the world over! There were a few hundred sheep flanked by half a dozen Apennine sheep dogs that look a bit like wolves. Each and every town we drove through or could see in the distance had sustained damage from the earthquake and featured the colourful new build houses at the perimeter and construction cranes above the rooftops. We drove south to Seciarno and then turned north back toward L’Aquila via another route. We had purchased some meats and cheeses and breads, including a wonderful olive bread, in Rocco de Mezzo, and we stopped in the town square of Pedicciano for lunch. The fountain in the centre of the square worked but the church had straps holding its bell tower in place. Two other houses were also strapped together. Behind the church was a newly built residence with a thriving vegetable garden and many pots of flowers. As we were eating out lunch at the one picnic table on the square a man emerged from the house and walked past and wished us ‘buon gusto’. We thanked him and enjoyed a very pleasant picnic lunch. When we had finished Joan went over to look at the vegetable garden and the man invited us into his new home for coffee. Marcello was a retired Italian major and his wife, Maria worked at a nearby hospital. They had been living in the fourth floor of an apartment in the centre of L’Aquila when the earthquake struck. While their building did not collapse, some of their neighbours and friends lost their lives. His emotion when talking about the tragedy remained palpable and visible as he spoke about the experience and the trauma. They had lived with friends in a small house with large cracks in the walls in this town of Pedicciano and had only moved into their new house in December. They were very proud of it and offered us a tour around it and their grounds. Their new house had high ceilings with huge exposed wooden beams and tile floors and was built to withstand earthquakes. They seemed very happy to be there. They talked about their two children, one of whom had worked in Cork on a six month contract recently, and their three grandchildren. The house was prepared for their visits. We thanked them for the coffee and chat and tour and they gave us an armful of ripe and juicy beef tomatoes as we left. Our next stop was the underground grotto and caverns at Stifee. The Grotte di Stiffe is an underground cave, about 700 metres in length, with fast-flowing water running through it with a couple of spectacular waterfalls where the water comes spurting out through crevices in the rocks deep within its depths. We walked its full length with a large group and a tour guide who shouted her explanations in Italian through a megaphone at us. We drove back to Santa Rufina.

Total distance travelled today: 130 km.

Wednesday, 3 September – We woke to low clouds obscuring the mountain across the valley. After another large breakfast we set off on our day’s journey to the Adriatic coast. Our first scheduled stop was the one ‘tourist site’ in L’Aquila that had been completely restored, the Fontana delle 99 Cannelle (Fountain of 99 Spouts). It was given its name to celebrate the ancient origin of the town. Instead, we were temporarily mis-directed to the new commercial district where we found a Decathalon sports shop anchoring a bright and colourful mall. We stopped and shopped for a bit and then continued on to the fountain. A man had set up his tables selling tourist trinkets and souvenirs on the square near the fountain sitting in the shadow of a heavily-damaged and strap-supported house. The medieval fountain commemorated the joining together of the 99 smaller districts into the municipality of L’Aquila in 1272. Each of the fountain spouts was distinct. In more recent times it had served as a community laundry. We skirted the edge of the old town of L’Aquila again and stopped to take a few more photos of the damaged buildings. It was a similar experience to our New Orleans visit when we toured the Lower 9^th Ward and other areas destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and the failure of its levee system.

On the suggestion of the B&B owner, we drove north of L’Aquila and into the Grand Sasso National Park to visit the small medieval towns in the shadow of the Corno Grande mountain, at 2912 metres the tallest peak of the Grand Sasso range of the Apennine mountains. Unfortunately, we never saw the Corno Grande as it was very misty and we were driving through clouds. The small towns we stopped at and wandered around were warrens of narrow medieval alleyways and thick-walled buildings, arches and many churches. There were damaged buildings here also. The medieval round tower of San Stefano di Sessanio had completely collapsed during the earthquake. In its place was a wire outline structure around which it was slowly being reconstructed. The small town contained half a dozen bed-and-breakfasts, at least as many restaurants as well as numerous gift and craft stores. We suspect that that tower, which looks spectacular in the pre-earthquake photographs, was the main reason for the development of this town as a visitor destination and that its restoration is essential for the town. The town of Castel di Monte was facing a similar problem in that their medieval castle and church at its peak had been damaged, was being restored and was closed to visitors.

We stopped for lunch at a forest picnic table with a view over the valley and then continued through the mountainous park and then descended into the valley to the Adriatic coastal city of Pescara.

Pescara is not a pretty city! It was heavily bombed during WWII and much of the city centre was reduced to rubble. The buildings that replaced them are poor examples of 1950s architecture and have not fared well over the intervening years. They are shabby and rundown. We arrived in the city centre at mid-afternoon – but before the stores there had re-opened after their daily lunchtime siesta – and went in search of the tourist office. We found it but it didn’t reopen until 5:30. We had a coffee and cake in the Jazz Cafe. The music was good but not jazz; the coffee was strong; the cake very sweet. I asked the bar tender where I might find some live jazz in this city and was told that I wouldn’t (except during their festival in July). The very helpful girl at the tourist office confirmed his information. We asked her what she recommended for us to see and do in Pescara. As the sky was cloudy and it was a bit chilly, hanging out on the beach was not an option. She said the other two things to do in Pescara: shop and eat. I asked about any local record stores and she gave me directions to Discover. We walked there but their selection of Italian jazz was minimal and I purchased nothing. We were tiring after our long day and drove in search of our ‘country house hotel’, called Paradiso, which was located on a hill south of the city and overlooking its vast panorama. We were too tired to drive back into the city for dinner and instead went to a place very near the hotel, called Diavolo Aqua Santa, which also had a wonderful view of the city and valley below. There were a few tables for couples as most of the restaurant was given over to an 18^th birthday celebration. The owner was very friendly and helpful. He was born in New York but moved back to Italy with his Italian parents when he was nine years old. We shared a first course of pasta and a main course of Argentine beef tagliata, some french fried potatoes, and a rich chocolate torte. Of course we accompanied this with a nice bottle of the local red wine. We watched the young Italian couples courting and the family gathering of about 40 persons enjoying themselves and each other’s company. When we returned to our hotel, its dining room featured another gathering of friends and family loudly celebrating a birthday! We were exhausted by then and they did not disturb our sleep at all.

Thursday, 4 September – Pescara – The breakfast at the Paradiso consisted primarily of many different kinds of sweet cakes, juice from cartons and coffee. We caught up on our emails and online newspaper reading as we hadn’t had internet access in Aquila. We drove into the city and parked at the fish market where the fish mongers signalled a waving welcome to Joan. We explained to a Tunisian fish monger that we had ‘no cucina’ and he shrugged and smiled and asked us where we were from. We browsed in the bio-market next door and purchased a bottle of wine and a small bottle of olive oil. The fish market is located at the mouth of the river Abruzzo and is about 2 kilometres from the pedestrian shopping district. Again the morning sky was shielded by greying clouds. We walked toward the centre. Our first stop was another music store, Gong. It had an extensive jazz section and I browsed and hunted for about an hour while Joan took advantage of a seat and a free wifi connection. I found a couple of Italian jazz cds that needed to be added to my collection and purchased them. We continued onward. As it was now after one o’clock the stores were closed for the traditional 3 to 3.5 hour afternoon siesta; most stores re-open around 4:30. We lunched at DeGustibus: finally some sea food! Two pasta dishes: one ravioli with prawns and the other a linguine vongole (clams): both were tasty, the vongole was as salty as the nearby sea. We washed it down with a local white wine. After lunch we walked on to a cafe we had spotted yesterday for coffee and strudel.

We turned toward the seaside and its beach that stretches for over ten kilometres on both sides of where the river empties into it. Italians tend to ruin their beaches, allowing various buildings, beach bars and bistros and dance-clubs, to be built between the long and wide promenade and separate dual-way cycle path and the sea, and then covering the rest of the sand with forests of permanent sun umbrellas and lounge chairs. There are also high-fenced volleyball courts and children’s playgrounds with bouncy castles and the like. Walking along the promenade we can only catch glimpses of the beach and the water beyond. A curving pair of Calatrava bridges for pedestrians and cyclists only stretched up and over the mouth of the river with elevated views along both sides of the bay. As the day was grey, the sun umbrellas were all closed and looked like a forest of de-branched, cultivated trees ready to be cut down and processed. (If only that were the case!) The coast on the southern direction was the working port and a small marina. Two of the largest and closest buildings were former market buildings now abandoned. Fishing boats were docked along both sides the river. We walked over the bridge and then back to the car and returned to our Paradiso hotel. In the hotel dining area another birthday party gathering was taking place, this time smaller in number and quieter in volume.

Our neighbour in Orvieto, Josephine, when we told her we were going to Pescara, said: ‘Pescara, no.’ She was not impressed with Pescara and really neither were we. It is a bit run down but not as seedy or grungy as some port cities in Europe. Perhaps that is what it was lacking for us: a little bit of sleaze adds character to a city. The beach was long and of soft sand but inaccessible except by payment or a small ‘free’ area near the mouth of the river. As TEVAN (Travellers, Explorers, Voyagers and Vagabonders, Adventurers, Nomads) journeyers, we believe anyplace and everyplace is worth visiting once and we are glad to have stopped here and experienced Pescara.

Friday, 5 September - Pescara to Vasto. - Morning started with another breakfast of sweet cakes and milky coffee. We drove the coastal route SS16 south to Vasto. After about an hours’ driving we stopped in the small town of Ortona for a brief walkabout. Ortona overlooks the Adriatic Sea. On its wide pedestrian-only main street three small independent bookstores are located. The drive along the coast was pleasant and scenic but unspectacular. We stopped for a picnic lunch beside the sea where a small group of holiday houses was clustered, as well as an oceanside rental chalet and camping area. A couple German RVs were also parked there. We arrived in Vasto and drove through the hill-top town. Much of the centro storico dates from the 15th century, a golden period in which the city was known as 'the Athens of the Abruzzi'; it is also distinguished as the birthplace of the poet Gabriele Rossetti.

We drove 2 kilometres to the seaside Vasto Marina and checked into Hotel Caravel for the night. After a quick nap we walked along the beach. It is mostly hotels, touristy pizzeria restaurants and camp grounds. This beach was not quite so cluttered with umbrellas, but there were still many of them. Each hotel has an allocated section of beach on which to set up their umbrellas and lounge chairs. We assume that there is a cost for this to raise revenue for the local town. A small pier juts into the water and at its end are a few men and their sons fishing.

Joan had asked the hotelier for a ‘good local fish restaurant’ and he recommended we go back up to Vasto on the hill to a place called Ristorante Castello Aragona. Joan inspected all the restaurant menus in Vasto Marina and nothing seemed appealing to her, they were mostly pizzerias. Ristorante Castello Aragona was a converted castle tower with a panoramic view. We had a fish dinner that was good, edible and adequate, but nothing special. We started with a shared local pasta, cavatelli, which was small and shell shaped in a mixed seafood sauce. Joan had a main course of grilled seafood that was primarily calamari and I had a three-crustacean au gratin (half-lobster, two large prawns and two red shrimp). The local white wine was a grape new to us, Pecorino, which at 13 percent alcohol had a full flavour. Our sleep was broken many times during the night by passing trains and vehicular traffic in addition to a heavy downpour of rain.

Saturday, 6 September – Vasto to Peschici – We began our morning, after a quick breakfast, by returning to the old town city centre of Vasto to wander around a little bit. There were two separate markets – one featuring cheese and meat and the other fruits and vegetables. The stall-owners were very generous with their offerings. A robust lady selling small mozzarella cheese balls insisted that we try them; they were smooth and delicious. Further on we sampled some porchetta from and its heavily and heavenly spiced flavourings immediately convinced us we needed to purchase some for lunch. After browsing all the stalls, we returned to purchase a small bag of locally produced mozzarella balls. Even after we had paid for our purchases the lady generously insisted we each accept a few more to eat immediately! A short while later we bought some rolls from a small bakery with a steady stream of customers. The picturesque, historic old town of Vasto features the standard range of churches and narrow alleys, and a large castle at its centre. The town was bustling with people going about the daily routines of living their lives.

Our journey took us further along the SS16, aka Adriatic Highway, although it is a single lane and very twisty road. The sky was grey but it was very warm so we put the top down on Thelonious MG and turned up the jazz on the cd player and cruised south. Those faithful readers from our South American journey will recall our staying just ahead of natural disasters there: an earthquake and subsequent tsunami in northern Chile; a massive and deadly city fire in Valparaiso. This time, however, we experienced nature’s at full force. Upon entering Puglia the heavens opened up and rain came down in Niagra Falls-like volume and intensity. It happened so quickly, while we were crossing a long bridge that we were instantly drenched in the down-poor before we were able to safely stop and pull the canvas roof of the MG back over our heads. We laughed and shook ourselves off as best we could and recalled a similar incident in St Martin in the Caribbean (mom will remember this also!).

The heavy rain continued for the next couple hours, very dense and limiting our visibility and slowing our progress. At one point we were driving through a river of water rushing down the roadway at us. We were diverted by the Carabinieri as flash floods had made several bridges on our route, the SS 16 impassable. He suggested we backtrack to the highway and go to Peschici via Foggia. We stopped to consider this as it would mean doubling our travel distance (and I hate to backtrack where there are new roads ahead as yet un-driven) We consulted our very-detailed Michelin Travel Atlas and decided that instead of backtracking to the inland highway, we would attempt a smaller and narrower set of local roads. The driving was very slow as mud and rocks were strewn across the roadway. At one point we found ourselves driving down a strip of land between two bodies of water, the Adriatic Sea on our left and the large seawater Lago de Varano lagoon to our right. This was very rural Italy. The roads were lined with olive trees. Apparently more than 80 percent of the olive oil produced in Italy comes from Puglia. The rain had let up at that point and we stopped at a closed beach resort and used one of their tables for a marvellous lunch that Joan prepared with the porchetta. The slices were thick as steaks and made wonderful and very spicy sandwiches. It was our first experience of the African influence in southern Italian food and we look forward to further examples of the fusion of these two cuisines.

When we finally arrived in Peschici we discovered that the floods had swept away part of a beach bar that was situated at the mouth of the river. There were three boats slowly traversing the small harbour and we assumed this meant that a person or people had been swept out to sea. The port and the beach area was now a mushy brown swamp.

We checked in to a small apart-hotel at the edge of the old city on the hill, high away from the river and its rushing waters. Peschici is known as the ‘white city’ as all the buildings are painted white. It is a tourist destination and the historic centre is full of gift and craft shops, ceramicists and workers in olive wood, pizzerias and bars catering to visitors. The tourist office helped us with a map and the pronunciation of the town’s name: Pes-Key-Chi. We wandered the small pedestrian-only streets and browsed and stopped at the main square for an ‘apertivo’, a before-dinner drink that is generally served with fresh bread drizzled with olive oil and small chopped tomatoes, a small bowl of olives, and a few slivers of a local cheese and salami. We purchased some fresh pasta, a small ear-shaped local speciality called orecchiette, which Joan used to create a magical dinner with a sauce consisting of pancetta, olives, the buffalo mozzarella we had purchased earlier, and the last of Marcello and Maria’s wonderful beef tomatoes.

Sunday, 7 September – Peschici - Our day began with the sound of a helicopter patrolling the murky waters of the flood-filled bay. We assumed it was searching for missing persons but were informed by a couple of people that that was not the case: no lives were lost in the flood. A few firemen in wet gear walked the shallows and poked sticks into the sand. We walked up to the old city again. The white walls shone in the morning sunshine. It reminded us a bit of Morocco: white buildings and blue doors. Even though it was Sunday morning, many of the shops were open for business, as is usual in area catering to tourists. After coffee we walked all the way down to the bay to witness the damage caused by yesterday’s flood up close. The river had burst its banks and left a thick brown sludge in its wake. It swept at least two automobiles that we could see out into the bay. It also swept away the ground beneath two beach restaurants, parts of which were missing and the rest of which were partially collapsed. In the same area were a few uprooted trees. The sidewalk of one of the two small bridges collapsed as though cut with a large knife. The clean-up had already begun. Families in waders were sweeping the muddy water from their homes and bull dozers scraped up bucketfuls of mud. After a couple hours we returned to our hotel for lunch. Earlier in the old town we had bought a bottle of local white wine, a combination of falanghina and chardonnay grapes and a jar of locally-produced salsa called ‘Bomba Pugliese’. It contained peppers, aubergine, red carrots, chilli peppers, extra virgin olive oil, vinegar and salt and it was very hot and spicy; it was definitely ‘bomba!’ We also bought some spicy sausage. Joan mixed these ingredients, creating a sauce to go with the rest of the pasta from the previous day and we sat on our balcony overlooking the bay. After lunch we indulged in what H.V.Morton defined in his classic travelogue A Traveller in Southern Italy (which I am reading at the moment and which Joan read last month) as ‘the sacred moment of the Italian afternoon when the population is horizontal’: the siesta!

After waking from our siesta, we read for a couple hours on our small terrace and in the early evening and watched the sun set red in the distance. We returned to the old city centre for another walkabout. All the shops had re-opened and the restaurants were preparing their outdoor tables. We walked the narrow stone streets again and browsed and people-watched. There were many other visitors doing a similar promenade. We had very good pizza for dinner at Pizza Peter Pan (there is also a pizzeria here called Pizza Padre Pio!). We finished with an equally good ice cream from Creperie San Michel which was ‘Number One’ on Trip Advisor for Peschici. (We must always taste-test the local gelato as we drive around southern Italy!)

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