Category: Province of Pescara
In Pursuit of Happiness The statue of Ennio Flaiano guards the entrance to the oldest part of the city of Pescara where he was born. Poet, author, playwright, collaborator of Federico Fellini, and the first winner of the prestigious Strega literary award, Flaiano was fond of aphorisms. One of his favourites is written on the plinth of the statue: la felicità consiste nel non desiderare che ciò che si possiede. Happiness consists in desiring only what you possess. A wise maxim, you might think, but one which Flaiano himself failed to honour, since he wasted little time in abandoning his native city and all he possessed, and decamping to...
Where to begin, if not at the sea. For what would Pescara be without the sea, without its lungomare and luxurious lidos, its pier and pescatori? What would it be without its marina and mega yachts? A fitting name The city’s name (but for one letter, the same as the verb meaning to fish) evokes the sea. It was around the year 1000 that Aternum, as the Romans called it, became Piscaria, like the river on whose banks it stood. In 1927 the town was joined with Castellammare Adriatico on the river’s northern shore. Efforts to revert to the Roman name were thwarted by Pescara’s most famous son, Gabriele...
Bears and other perils Just outside Popoli we pass a quaint road sign alerting us to the possibility of bears crossing. Having once had a near miss with a deer on the motorway, and risked a collision with a kangaroo in the Australian outback, I shouldn’t be complacent. But somehow the idea that a bear might amble out of the woods to cross the road strikes me as comical. And yet. We are on the border between the two great national parks of Abruzzo, the Majella and the Gran Sasso, the habitat of about 50 members of the orso marsicano species. Sightings are rare but in certain periods, or...
City of Angels, Mojito, and the Bones of Wild Beasts In Città Sant’Angelo one might hope to see angels. Or even saints. What I wasn’t expecting was an elephant’s tusk. Strange Beasts But here it is in full view in the little Civic Museum. Though broken in two places, it lies protected in its special glass casket against a backdrop of an artist’s impression of its owner roaming the wilds. The kind young man who is pleased to welcome visitors to the museum tells me it was found in 1977 when the motorway was being built. But how did it get here? I want to know. According to our...
It’s ten kilometres to the Hermitage of Santo Spirito from Roccamorice. The road takes us from the airy green foothills of the Maiella and plunges us deep under the leafy archways of an oak and beech forest. Sunlight filters through the upper branches and spangles the road as we drive along. The road ends in an open space and there, backed onto a rocky outcrop, is the Hermitage. Oh for the contemplative life. No wonder the poet Petrarca mentioned this place in his De Vita Solitaria as being conducive to asceticism. Even the most arid soul must surely be nourished by such beauty and silence – silence, that is,...
and a tale of Scottish soldiers Long before the town spilled down the hillside and onto the coastal plain, there was Montesilvano Colle, or ‘Lu Colle’ (the hill) for short. At that time Montesilvano meant what it said: wooded hill. It was then a drowsy hamlet, nestling among thick pine woods that crept all the way down to the sea. Now on the plain the trees have been replaced by a forest of apartment buildings which continue to reproduce at a terrifying rate. ‘Colle’, though, relatively untouched by the building boom of the sixties and the 2000s, maintains the easy-going charm of a country borgo. It is most pleasant to...
Believe you me, persuasive salespeople can be trouble. Take restaurants for instance. All it takes is an eloquent waiter to sweet-talk me down the slippery slope of the pudding menu. And that’s what happens in Roccamorice. Only this time it is not a restaurant but a shop – a ‘shoe boutique’, as it happens, and the only store open on the main street, now baking in the August sun. It has just opened for afternoon trade and we duck under the awning with the excuse of admiring the colourful array of trekking shoes in the outdoor display. Out comes the owner, who just happens to be charming and good-looking....
Beats me why anyone would want a warm sticky doughnut when temperatures are nudging 40° but it seems that people do. Why else would a jaunty cart featuring a doughnut-munching Homer Simpson appear on the beach at around 10 every morning in summer? Why else would the peace be shattered by the cry of CiaaAAMMBELLE if not to alert the sunbathing public that their favourite seaside snack was on its way? It pays to get to the beach well before Ciambelle Man. 7.30am is good. At that time beach noises are as they should be and the sea is often glorious – limpid round the edges, sun-spangled in the...
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error in translation leaving this article non quite correct. Happiness is NOT desiring what you have, is the correct translation.…
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