About Abruzzo

Tagged: Pescara

Boat carrying statue of Sant'Andrea passing under the Ponte del Mare, Pescara 0

Festa!

Festa di Sant’Andrea

Years ago, on my return from the beach one sweltering July day, I told my mother-in-law what I’d seen – just off the coast, a procession of fishing boats, festooned with gaily fluttering banners. (I swear I’d also heard fireworks. Fireworks? In broad daylight?) Ah yes, she said, without turning around from the pasta pot. Today’s the Festa di Sant’Andrea. Now, being Scottish, I know perfectly well that St. Andrew’s feast day is on 30 November and not in July. But I said nothing. This was my mother-in-law. And anyway, what difference does it make if St. Andrew’s Day is celebrated in Scotland on 30 November with ceilidhs and haggis,...

Ninfa fountain and Pescara riviera 2

Province of Pescara / The Coast

Pescara – the Riviera

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...

Montesilvano Colle from below 0

Province of Pescara / The Coast

Montesilvano Colle

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 Now on the plain the trees have been replaced by a forest of apartment buildings which continue to reproduce at a terrifying rate.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...