Abruzzo the Antidote
When we travel, we seek change and variety. And if life at home feels predictable or monotonous, we seek to dial things up in the dazzle and flare of the big places: the hip, the hype, the bucket-list monuments, the dance floors and the delicacies – a spinning sensory wheel of excitement. But life at home is already over-stimulated. And, if I’m honest, such trips as often as not leave me strung out at the finish line, needing recovery and detox upon re-entry. Maybe I should have been dialling things down.
Perhaps this is why I was so struck by the experience of restoration in Abruzzo? A timely encounter of travel as a salve in an overstimulated world. Dare I label Abruzzo the antidote destination to our modern neurosis? The phenomenon of well-being began for me in the 16th Century village of Santo Stefano di Sassanio, waking up inside meter-thick walls furnished with natural textures and light – wooden beams, woolen mattresses, terracotta tiles, a tumeric-yellow woven blanket, wood-burning fireplace, olive oil soap next to a claw-foot tub. The way into the apartment required three ginger rotations of a skeleton key the size of a harmonica. Clank, clank, cluck…
The stoic outline of mountain peaks across the Gran Sasso d’Italia in the Appenine mountain range is idyllic for hiking, and its vista provides quite the perspective. The valley below thrums with the peace of the shepherds who walk the transhumance migration each year from the altitude of Abruzzo to the lowlands of Puglia. The charming mountain towns that dot the region display the resistance of women who kept the witches (and infant mortality) out by hanging dried edelweiss above the miniature door frames while the men winter. A stroll through the main street of the village reveals locally spun wool, a master crocheter of tombolo lace weaving golden threads into intricate patterns, a lentil soup to die for except that eating it will probably help you live to a hundred. All contributing factors to my purrring amygdala.
Meanwhile, just an hour away, lies the Adriatic coastline stretching out for miles. The stark contrast in landscape, colours and cuisine is delightful, while offering an equally pleasing sense of equanimity. From the perch of the Caldoresque castle in Vasto (15th C), it is easy to spot the extensive cycling path below, clinging to the coastline, converted from the old railway. Along this same stretch is a series of Trabocchi, wooden fishing huts that have largely been converted to tasteful restaurants for the most delicious seafood.
If there ever were an antidote to the woes of modern frazzle, I’d swear by a day of cycling along the sunny Trabocchi coast with a stop along the way for fish soup and a sundowner aperitivo under a lemon tree in Vasto.
