Return to the Abruzzo

I was very lucky to be able to return to Atessa in Abruzzo last month and to stay once again in the Casa Pietro, where I enjoyed a week's painting course under the tutelage of the lovely Marco di Marinis, who showed me how to work with watercolours more effectively.
I now realise that I was using them like gouache, or poster colour, without really exploring their characteristic use as transparent washes.



Due to poor weather (a deluge which hid the lovely valley views) our first sessions were in Marco's Atessa studio and I used one of his photos of the trebocchi - gloriously Gormenghast-ish fishing platforms characteristic of the Chieti coastline. The photo is showing the painting greyer than it is in reality.

By the weekend the weather had improved, and we had a morning date with Marco at the San Pasquale monastery to start a painting en plein air. There was a lovely view of Atessa from the park across the road from the monastery, so we pitched the easels and got stuck in.

This is my version of it:

My third piece was a view of the hill across the house from Casa Pietra: it's a lovely view to enjoy while washing up at the sink in the kitchen.  The sun was so strong that it melted the glue of the masking tape into the paper!

It was a lovely time away and I learned a lot.  I saw some wonderful places while I was there and hope that I will be able to return one day to enjoy this lovely area again.

Two weeks in Italy: The Road to Carunchio

Leaving Casa Pietra, we drove inland towards the Appenines and another hilltop settlement, Carunchio. The landscape was quite rugged, the mountains looming in the distance playing hide-and-seek in the clouds.

You can see the dryness of the grass, but the land is still remarkably green and the trees tell the story of reasonable levels of groundwater.

The crops had already been gathered in in some parts, the ground turned ready for further sowing and growing.

There were groves of olive trees everywhere. I believe everone who has land in this area must grow olives on some of it.

Then, occasionally, we would see communities of colourful beehives in a sheltered corner of a field, busy bees flying to and fro above them.

I found the colours and forms in this landscape absolutely irresistable.

Such a mixture of green and dried straw.

Rolling hills fall away steeply in places.

The mountains and the massive skies make you feel very small.

The mountains high enough and the clouds low enough to play disappearing tricks.

Two weeks in Italy - what lies beneath (and around)

Casa Pietra is a lovely, traditional old Abruzzan farmhouse. When its owners, Robert and Marcia, bought it, it had not been occupied for 40 years, and it has taken them four years to get it to its present lovely and more functional state in which it comprises an apartment and a villa, both of which are available to rent. It is still a work in progress, although this did not intrude upon our holiday there. In the past, farmers would accomodate their livestock in the basement of their home, and I believe there are plans to turn these previous animal quarters into another small apartment. With the lovely stone walls and arched ceilings, there would be loads of atmosphere and character in such a transformation.

The house is on an unpaved road in an agricultural valley and National Park woodlands (where hunting is forbidden) within easy reach of several villages and the town of Atessa. I never tired of the view of the town across the valley, which changed constantly according to the time of day and weather conditions. The surroundings are glorious.

Again, Atessa.

To the south-east.

Across the road.

I love this hill and the colours here.

Two weeks in Italy - A visit to Pescara

Another day, another view of the town and a new sky over Atessa. Such a peaceful place to be, just the chugging of a tractor tilling the fields around us and the odd bird call. The driver of the tractor had a great technique: he would drive up the hill (whichever he was working that day) and then plough down to the bottom, using gravity to help him.

We needed to find an internet connection for academic reasons, and the Web is not yet a large part of rural life in this part of the world, so we decided to go off in search of an internet cafe. One of the larger towns in our region of Chieti seemed a good idea, so we set off for Lanciano, with Pescara as back up. We had managed to lay our hands on a guide book to the region and the author, Luciano di Grigorio, waxed lyrical about the shopping in Pescara. We'd not really gotback into the swing of the siesta habit, so while Lanciano was a very lovely town, it was also very closed when we got there. We decided to return another day, and drove on to Pescara, on the coast and where the nearest airport to Casa Pietra in located (with flights from Stansted, not so useful for us West Country folks).

I was actually very underwhelmed by the shops of Pescara, though I must admit that my limited range for walking did get in the way of a determined shop crawl. We managed to find an air-conditioned cafe in which to eat a very welcome late lunch and rehydrate ourselves. Then an internet connection was sought and eventually found in an internet cafe - there is a road containing several near to the railway station. The necessary academic material was duly downloaded onto a memory stick, and we were free to see some sights.

The Piazza Italia was a pretty urban breathing space, with its fountain and trees, by the Provincial Library and Offices, and we managed to find some parking there for a while.

 

Unfortunately the clouds gathered and it began to rain: a showery day.

We decided to return home along the coast road, the SS16.  This coastal area is known as the Costa Dei Trabocchi for the wooden fishing huts on stilts which can be seen.  The clouds were also creating some amazing skies:-

We decided to stop at one of the Fish Restaurants along the road for supper, but it was hard to spot them before we had gone past them, so we had travelled down to Fossacesia before we found the one we dined in, Ristorante Il Pescatore.  It was delicious, although it was hard to choose for the one of us who does not like fish.  The seafood was so fresh and delicious and the prawns could be eaten, shells and all.  I'm glad to say that they also served the semifreddo di torrone, for which I had developed a bit of a taste.

Then it was back to Casa Pietro, ready for our beds.

Real Travels: Two weeks in Italy

I have just had the shock of my life, to see it is more than two months since I last posted here. Summer has (more or less) happened, Autumn whispers in the wings. For two weeks we made our (very much last-minute) escape to a corner of paradise in the south of the Abruzzo region in Italy and, no, I had not heard of it previously, either... Or to be more truthful, it had not lodged in my memory, for Abruzzo is the region in which one finds L'Aquila, badly hit by an earthquake last year. L'Aquila is in the north west of the region and we were staying in the south east, near the hill-top town of Atessa.

 

I found the house to rent on the internet and we flew to Rome from Bristol, then hired a car to drive across Italy to the east coast, boggling at the first hill-top towns we passed.  Gradually it dawned that these are far from unique as we crossed the Appenines.  Our sat-nav did not cope well with finding the address of the farmhouse, so we found ourselves in town (Atessa) where some local men tried to come to our assistance.  They knew of "Robert and his 4 bambini" but didn't know where he lived, so we phoned him and rendez-voused outside the town hospital around the corner, as suggested by our Italian Knights in shining armour.  Robert (and the 4 bambini) met us successfully and guided us down the unpaved road to the house.  He showed us around, then guided us back to town so we could eat, in the lovely restaurant "Al Duka", where my offspring fell upon their pizza meal with great enjoyment and I ate a steak before rejoicing in a torrone semi-freddo dessert.  We found our way back to the Casa Pietra and slept well, to wake up to this view (above) of the town.
 

 

And this was the view in one direction from the house terrace.  It was a lovely, sunny day and so warm, too.  Now it was Monday morning and we had no food for breakfast, so it seemed best to head out to explore and shop.  We actually did our shopping in the nearby village of St Luca, where they had a supermercado, Conad, which had a fabulous stock of goodies.  Then we went back to Atessa...

 

This is the first bit of the town we would come to, opposite a modern piazza with water feature which topped off a multi-storey car park.  There was a nice cafe behind the signpost on the right, where we enjoyed liquid refreshment a number of times.

 

Through a narrow alleyway, between an excellent gelateria and a delicatessen, there was another piazza. backed by an ornate war memorial.  I noticed the forgotten but familiar hard stare of local people which initially seems a little hostile.  It isn't, though.  Smile and say "Buorngiorno" and you receive a friendly response.  I can't recall where I first came across this subtle difference of behaviour - but I did remember not to get paranoid!

There is no escaping that the town is atop a hill - everthing slopes either up or down!

Not surpringly, I experienced architectural echoes of both Venice and Florence despite the differences.

And there was evidence that this was once a walled town, with gated access - or possibly two walled towns, now joined together by the slaying of a dragon by the redoubtable local saint, S. Leucio.

But the rugged countryside is never far away in this region, even by the modern town library:-

Outside the  library was where we found this modern homage to the squid.

Medieval and modern lie almost side by side in Atessa.

And always more steps to climb, another corner to turn to discover another secret place.

At the top of the road opens another piazza, the church basking in the sunshine.

At the top of the hill was also a palazzo, its open door and arched hallway inviting the curious (me!).

While its windows were ornately barred.

So, back down the hill to this quatrefoiled building, which would not look out of place in Venice.

The street lights came on

And the sun set on the first full day of our holiday.