Andiamo al mare

When I forced myself to get out of bed yesterday morning to pack and get ready to go on holiday, I was not expecting to arrive at a place as incredible as this.

The beach at Fossacesia 

A great place to get some sun on the beach

Italians are meticulous clothes folders; it’s like an art. So while I threw my clothes onto to the table in areas for “stay” and “go”, Lina folded them all into nice, tidy shapes and managed to get everything into one small bag.

All of our bags were by the door waiting to be taken downstairs. Meanwhile, the house was in absolute chaos. When Buccia, a tiny little dog that barks non-stop and growls and snaps viciously at me all the time, wasn’t running around like mental chasing me, licking at my feet and making me yell even more, she was guarding my bag by growling like a bulldog, with big eyes and gnarly teeth. Apparently she has this fascination with suitcases, and acts like a guard dog around them. She did it with my suitcases the day I arrived and I thought she was crazy, but this is even worse. If she knows it’s in a particular room, she guards the door instead. I thought to myself: “ugh, she’s tiny! I can get past this.” But no, that dog is so vicious when she snaps and yelps. So I left her to her own devices, and eventually won my bag back when she wasn’t looking.

Then the fruttivendolo arrived to sell us fruit from two stories below. Lina yells down her order, he puts it all in plastic bags, she lowers down a bucket on a rope with money in it, he takes the money, puts the fruit and change back into the bucket, and then she pulls it back up again. Everyone around here does it because they all live in apartment buildings, and it’s much easier than climbing down all the stairs and back up a thousand times.

The fruttivendolo who sells us fruit from downstairs

When everyone had finished yelling and running around frantically organising things, Gino made us a delicious caffè and we were finally ready to pile everything into the car and depart for Abruzzo.

The drive here was very pretty; it seemed like a mix between Austria and Italy. Even though I was getting sleepy, I forced myself to stay awake, and I’m so glad I did. I’ve only ever driven to Roma before, so it was nice to see different roads and scenery because the geography here is really different. I am now considering returning here one day to do a driving tour of Italy for a couple of months.

Abruzzo is the region next to Lazio (where Rome is) on the east coast, and Naples is in Campania (on the west coast). So to get to Abruzzo, you have to drive right across Italy. The main road winds through lush, green countryside, between hills and mountains. Olive groves and rivers extend out towards the hills, and perched right on the top, there are medieval villages that are basically self-sufficient because they are so far away from any shops. Every few hundred metres there are sets of tunnels to pass through that are so short you can see through them. It seems to me they built the roads like this in order to maintain the countryside instead of busting down all the hills.

The tunnels cutting through the hills on the way to Abruzzo

The village at the top, sorry it's fuzzy - I took these photos in the car

The ride to Abruzzo

The whole ride here was very scenic, but then we arrived in Abruzzo, and the autostrada became lined with light and dark pink flowers, passing over bright green vineyards, with the bright blue sea peaking out between the fields.

The motorway coming into Abruzzo, lined with trees and flowers

The ride through Abruzzo, those trees look kind of like olive trees,
though to the left they may be grape vines

Soon enough we came into Fossacesia, where our house is. There were vineyards to one side, the sea to the other, and a little castle perched on the top of the hill directly in front of us. Before we pulled into our place, Gino took us down to the lungomare to see the beach and the sea. The view was pretty amazing, the beach lined with umbrellas and sunchairs, pizzerie, gelaterie and restaurants dotted along the lungomare, and an azure sea extending for miles.

One half of the beach seen from the trabocco

We returned to our house to unpack the car and settle in. The house is in a huge palazzo white and terracotta palazzo with stairways weaving through the atrium and a view of the sea peaking through. The house itself is very small, with a kitchen and table when you enter from the patio, a little room with a bed and a bunk bed for Afrodite and I, then to the left there is a bathroom and another room for Lina and Gino.

As soon as we had finished our delicious light lunch, which consisted of an insalata di rucola (rocket), pomodori, bresaola (similar to prosciutto crudo) e parmigiano with some bread, followed by fresh peaches and plums and un caffè, I put on some sunblock, picked up my camera and I set off to explore Fossacesia.

Our delicious lunch

To get to the beach I go downstairs, down the road a bit, and down a stairway lined with flowers.

The stairway to the sea

From here you walk about 30 metres to the lungomare and the beach extends for miles in both directions. Words can’t do it justice, so here are some photos of things I found.

Another part of the beach - the lifeguard's umbrella is seen to the right

A sole yacht navigating the sea

A boat resting on the pebbles

A sandy part of the beach!

The lungomare

Some pretty flowers that come in bright orange, red and pink

The beach here is not sand, but little pebbles. It makes me happy because I’m not such a fan of sand everywhere. But it’s even better because then in the water it is sandy, so you don’t hurt your feet. Even though I didn’t go swimming yesterday, I did walk in the water and I can confirm that it is delicious and warm. I can’t wait to go swimming today, but I think it’s a bit cloudy at the moment.

My journey lasted for a couple of hours, and by the end I was so envious of how bronzed everyone around me was. On the way back I saw a man selling little paintings on wood of a thing I can’t say the name of, but it’s like a fishing wharf (similar to the one I photographed) but much further along the coast. I asked him about the paintings because they were all the same wharf, but different views and different coloured backgrounds. He explained to me that the yellow/orange sky was l’alba (sunrise), the purple one cattivo tempo (bad weather), the blue one il giorno (just everyday), and the turquoise one because of il fiume (there is a river here nearby that has green water and it makes the sea go green sometimes).

Il trabocco: it's for fishing

This man told me not to worry that I am so white because he was also like that when he arrived here from Naples a month ago, and now his skin is so dark it’s almost black. He also told me that on Friday night there is la Notte Bianca, when everything stays open all night. This usually happens in cities and people go to visit things at nighttime and there are concerts and markets everywhere. But here it’s much much smaller, so instead of everything staying open, the streets will be lined with bancarelle (people with tables selling things), ethnic markets, artists, music and concerts. Then there are five areas, each run by a restaurant that sells something different, like aperitivi, cocktails, crêpes, pizzette, pesce (fish) etc etc. There is always some sort of festa here, it’s really cool!!

I returned home and locked myself in my room to get a little bit of peace from the dog barking, and about six people here all yelling and constructing drawers and gates, and putting up curtains. When I said my back was a bit sore, Gino came in and told me he was a “pearsonelle tra-ee-na”, lay out some cushions on the floor and showed me how to do sit ups properly, and all these other exercises. He then said he was going for a run on the lungomare (he plays soccer so has to stay fit). I wanted to go out again because it was 7pm and we weren’t going out for dinner until much later. So I crazily said I would go running with Gino, knowing full well I hadn’t run anywhere for about three months.

I almost died, I swear. I made it to the end of the lungomare and then did stretching with Gino before returning back home. I managed to eat a few mosquitos on the way but eventually made it home after 8, albeit with most of my body cramping up. Luckily, this morning the only muscle that’s sore is my left calf. Probably because Gino was my personal trainer, complete with stopwatch, and made us do lots of stretching. Hopefully I will get better - piano piano.

Around 9:30 we went out again for pizza at a restaurant just down the stairs by the beach. I had one with rucola, pomodori, grana, e un po di mozzarella. Grana is like parmigiano except it isn’t as old. Lina’s pizza was like my worst nightmare. Mozzarella, gorgonzola, parmigiano, noci (walnuts) and another cheese. Gino’s pizza was parmigiano, cipolla (onion) e tonno. Both of them were really nice, Gino’s was really sweet because of the onions, but I definitely could not have eaten a whole one.

My delicious pizza

Lina and Gino with their pizze

After dinner we went for a walk down the lungomare towards the children’s “theme park” and came home around midnight. This morning I woke up early and already people are yelling at each other outside about God knows what. But I think it is soon time to get back outside and enjoy the beach and the sun!