Tigger-Happy in San Vito Chietino

On a sunny June morning in San Vito it seems a sin not to be joyful. 

Your first impressions, though, might leave you wondering. The town at first glance seems little more than a cheerless strip of buildings on either side of a road that rushes down to the sea, swerving abruptly southward as if anxious to leave it all behind. In San Vito there is no seafront to speak of, no promenade where you might enjoy an ice cream and an evening stroll, the holiday flats down at the shore are drab/shabby and the main beach itself is cramped.  Where, you might wonder, is the joy?

Trabocchi

Well, to start with, we’re on the Trabocchi Coast, named after the rickety wooden fishing contraptions that dot this section of shoreline. Now that they are seldom used for actual fishing, these iconic sculptures have become romantic symbols, evoking a lifestyle that was anything but romantic. They straddle the rocks like gargantuan stick insects, with their long spindly legs extended over the waves. Some, like one here on San Vito pier, have been converted into restaurants – though that’s a big word for a shack no bigger than my kitchen at home.

Why can’t things be left alone, you say, why does everything need to be converted into something else and used for commercial purposes?  I hear you. And yet I’m not immune to the appeal of savouring succulent seafood in a stilt house, with the sea and sky all around.

Like on a boat, I expect, minus the rock and roll.

Some converted trabocchi are quite fancy, but this one on the San Vito pier is modest, more corner caff than Savoy, and it fits well into a beach environment that is unpretentious and family-oriented. 

The Marina

The marina nestles within a snug bay and the free beach, flanked on either side by private lidos, is narrow and usually crowded, the most coveted spots being near the dwarf palms, which provide a little natural shade for those lucky enough to bag them. Everyone else lays claim to a little patch of sand with their own colourful umbrella and favourite beach chair.

No one seems to mind the lack of space and the mood on the beach is relaxed and cheerful. Families cavort in the shallows and squealing children jump into the sea from the pier. If you swim further out towards the breakwater and turn to face the shore you will be rewarded with a more attractive view of the town, its red-roofed buildings clustered around the foot of a conic hill covered in thick vegetation. Swallows swoop and the sky is an endless, perfect June blue. You could be forgiven for doing a Tigger bounce or two.

And then, there’s Blu Mare.

Le Frit C’est Chic

For part of the joy of a morning in San Vito Chietino is the prospect of lunch at one of the open-air cafés that line the entrance road to the marina.  The original, and most famous, is Blu Mare, better known by its slogan, Le Frit c’est Chic, stamped on the t-shirts of staff whose parents are too young to have bopped to the 70s disco song. Now other copycat cafes have sprung up on either side. Most are self-service and the food comes on plastic plates but it is tasty and affordable. Since San Vito Chietino is on the Adriatic Bike Trail, all do a roaring trade.

If the thought of choosing from an astonishing array of seafood dishes while being elbowed by fellow customers is too daunting, there is always the quick and simple alternative – a seafood platter and chips from the ‘frittura’ counter.

New branches of Le Frit C’est Chic, or more properly, Blu Mare, have opened elsewhere in the region but somehow, without the sand between your toes, the salt drying on your skin, the summer sky above and the happy chatter of customers fresh from a morning on the beach, it is not quite the same.

---

Water bomb

It was not a sunny June day when I first came to San Vito. It was summer alright, but the sky that day was the shade of a new bruise. The sea, when briefly lit by a rare sunbeam puncturing the cloud, was a brilliant acid green. Thunder rumbled and lightning zig-zagged across the horizon. There was an uneasy stillness, broken only by the eerie creaking of the trabocchi.

At the time, the reputation of Blu Mare was just beginning to spread and we had come to check it out. We were the only customers that day and we ate under the awning, looking onto the street, desolate in a jaundiced pre-storm light. It was after lunch, when we were ordering coffee in the bar across the road, that the heavens cracked open and down came the deluge. Italians call this kind of rain a ‘water bomb’ for good reason. As we stood watching from the bar, water gushed in the gutters and a rat emerged from a drain and scampered across the street. A sudden clap of thunder seemed to shake the building and the lights in the bar flickered and went out. The only other customer, an elderly man who’d been feeding coins into the slot machine, cursed in dialect as the machine dinged and then fell silent, swallowing his cash for ever. The bar girl shrugged, renouncing all responsibility. 

The good thing about summer storms and water bombs is that they are usually over quickly. The sky soon lifted, the rain eased off and we stepped outside into the newly laundered afternoon. Down at the marina, the rain-washed pier reflected a patchy blue and white sky. The trabocchi swayed slightly but stood firm, as they had done for centuries, indifferent to the caprices of the weather.

I knew we’d be back. Most certainly when the sun was shining.