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Let it Snow – Yes, Perhaps, Maybe

The aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball. ~ Doug Larson

Yesterday I received an email from my friend Lino showing Piazza Garibaldi in Loreto Aprutino covered in snow.

There’s certainly beauty associated with snow and although we don’t normally get much in Dublin, it’s always a novelty when it falls. In November 2010, after an unusually heavy overnight snow fall P and I went walking almost knee deep in snow around Howth Head.

It was fun at first but then for the next few days Dublin practically stopped functioning. We don’t have snow ploughs on call so roads quickly became very tricky (= almost impossible) to navigate.

Today I’ve seen many photos of snow in Abruzzo which look stunning and I’ve also read of road closures and train passengers stuck for over 10 hours – there’s always a flip side.

I was talking to friends in Abruzzo a few hours ago using Skype and they took their laptop outside to show me the snow covering the tree branches. “Everything is white”, they said. “There could be snow for another three days, but then the weather should get better.”

I’d love to be there right now walking through the snow with my camera trying to take great photographs and yet I’d hate to be trying to get around from town to town. “The car is resting”, I was told.

After talking with them I pulled out a back issue of the magazine D’Abruzzo. The particular edition is number 92, Inverno 2010. The front cover has two bare trees covered in snow, standing in a snow covered landscape, without a foot print in sight. Although it looks like your typical winter wonderland you can almost feel the temperature drop as you touch the pages.

You can see the image here.

The photo is the work of Federico de Nicola. I didn’t know much about this photographer other than what I saw in the magazine so I did a sleuth-like search and found http://www.federicodenicola.net/.

I found the text on the home page difficult to translate so I’m not going to attempt to paraphrase it here. All I will say is that it is well worth drilling into the collections of photographs he has made available on his site as they are all wonderful. Apart from the striking scenery there is plenty of mastery of light on show.

The gallery starts with acqua 1 and you have a further acqua 2 to 7, vento 1 to 6 and miscellanea 1 to 4 – the sound effects help too.

Enjoy!

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Every Town Should Have a Castle

When I think of castles in Abruzzo I’m naturally drawn to old ruined structures that sit majestically on a hill and dominate the landscape. I think of watchtowers and fortifications, of battles won and lost and of knights on horseback defending the territory with skill and determination.

These are the thoughts I associate with Rocca Calascio, Bominaco, Capestrano and Roccascalegna. If there was a league table for castles these would be in the Premiership or Serie A. Perched high up, towering over the landscape, keeping check on everything that happens – these castles are special.

I’ve seen others of course, great fortifications like Il Castello Spagnolo (L’Aquila) and Il Castello Aragonese (Ortona) but these don’t excite my imagination as much.

It’s arguable which of them is the most impressive. In the mid 80’s filmmakers favoured Rocca Calascio for Ladyhawke and The Name of the Rose and I admit that when I first looked through guide books on Abruzzo I found the thought of visiting Rocca Calascio thrilling. But having visited the other three, wandered around them and touched their ancient walls, I’d find it hard to pick one over any of the others.

Loreto Aprutino has a castle. It may not be in the same league but it does have one significant advantage – you can stay there!

Il Castello Chiola dates back to 864 AD, that’s almost 1200 years old! From 1843 to 1995 it was in the hands the Chiola family and recently it was refurbished with the cooperation of the Italian Fine Arts Office and the European Community and turned into a fine hotel.

We’ve never stayed there. We almost did on our very first trip to Abruzzo but in the end we stayed in a B&B just a few doors away. I can’t remember why but it made sense at the time.

However Castello Chiola must take some responsibility for P and me finding and falling in love with Loreto Aprutino because on seeing a photograph of the hotel looking stunning in the snow we decided that we had to visit the town.

Many friends have stayed there and although they have said that it can sometimes feel a wee bit formal, they’ve all enjoyed the experience. Looking at the hotel’s website the prices don’t seem too bad either.

The hotel can be seen clearly from the town’s main square and sometimes on very hot days, doing my best to stay cool by having a cold beer under the shade of an umbrella, I look up and feel envious of the guests who can avail of the small but very inviting outdoor swimming pool!

In true castle tradition it sits high up competing for supremacy with the Church of St. Peter (San Pietro Apostolo) as they each mark one end of Via del Baio, probably Loreto Aprutino’s most illustrious street.

If you decide to visit and are feeling a little peckish I recommend the restaurant Locanda del Baio, only a few steps away, where you can get their wonderful Mugnaia della Locanda, long thick pasta in a very tasty sauce. When I go there I find it hard not to order their patatine which I think are the best chips I’ve ever tasted in Italy. Not very traditional I know, but they’re really very good.

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That January Feeling in Abruzzo

On my computer screen I have a widget that gives me a weather summary of Moscufo (PE), Abruzzo and also one of Dublin, Ireland. I like to keep track. Today, for both places the temperature is around 8 degrees (centigrade) with clear sunny skies. But the similarity ends once you look at the detail. There isn’t an ounce of wind in Abruzzo while we here in Dublin are feeling a 37 km/h wind from the WSW with a chill factor of 4 degrees. Now 8 degrees in the sun on a calm clear day sounds attractive to me right now as I’m soon going to head out into a biting wind.

I’ve visited Abruzzo twice in January. Once I was there to ring in the New Year and the other occasion I had a last minute chance opportunity to visit, so I took it. What else could I do?

When I was there the first time in January the snow was heavy on the mountains, the sunrises and sunsets where wonderful and the night sky was simply spectacular. I expect looking SW around 22:00 tonight Orion, Gemini and Canis Major will be in full view. I admit I’ve sipped Liquore di Genziana while boring anybody who’d listen about how to find other stars by looking at Orion. Don’t get me started!

That’s certainly one of the things I love about the smaller towns in Abruzzo. After the sun goes down you can find spots away from the houses and street lights and stare at the heavens. Inspiring! Of course there’s no shortage of places in the world where you can contemplate the stars, but you won’t be sipping Genziana while you do it.

When I think of Abruzzo in January it isn’t the clear skies that I think of first, it isn’t the winter sun that can cast long shadows and offer great photo opportunities, and it isn’t the almost imperceptible feeling that there’s a bit of a stretch in the evenings. (The days are getting longer, honest.)

No, when I think of Abruzzo in January I think of wandering around villages catching the smell of wood smoke gently spilling out from chimneys.

I love that smell. I’d wrap up warm, with a coat, scarf, gloves and probably a very silly looking hat and walk around the old town taking in the scent of smoke from warming fires. It’s uplifting. I think the smell is more intense on calm January days because the wind doesn’t grab it and take it away. On calm days the air seems to hang heavy and the wood smoke seems to pour down the tiled rooftops like treacle. I bet today is one of those days.

Bare trees, heavy jackets, bright winter sun, crystal clear skies all spell winter. Sometimes those clear skies and the low winter sun can be replaced by grey clouds with rolling fog or mist – grey, on grey, on grey. The damp and the cold together, making it very tempting to stay indoors and forget about the outside world. But with all of this there is also that smell, that fragrance, that sweet odour that seems to wrap you and the old town up in a warm blanket. That January feeling – hard to capture in a photograph.

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