Onna, Abruzzo Wounded

Current Events, Other Italy Favorites1 Comment

When we opened the shutters, the view of the majestic snow-capped Gran Sasso (“big rock” and it IS) unmistakably defined our location: Abruzzo. After breakfast, we headed to the new Comune (L’Aquila’s old city hall and most of the centro storico were destroyed in the 2009 earthquake) where Pino had to present a proposal for seismic restoration. I waited across the street at a new cafe’ – with modern minimalist lines – and talked Aquilani, stopping there for an espresso before or after one of their innumerable visits (over the past years) to the Comune. Most are still in pre-fab housing and almost nothing of the centro storico has been restored. Only those with houses (now in ruins or leveled) can enter the city center and no car traffic is permitted.
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In Le Marche, Golden Serpents, Lace Wonders

Curiosities, Food/Wine Lore, Italian 'Passione', Other Italy Favorites, Recipes1 Comment

Lost in time are the origins of Offida, medieval hilltown of Le Marche, certainly inhabited in the Bronze Age, later by a local Italic tribe, then finally by the Romans. The town’s name might derive from the temple dedicated to the serpent Ophis/Ophite, sacred edifice, where worship took place before a golden snake. Legend relates that the high priest of the temple could miraculously cauterize open wounds and bites by passing his wrist, wrapped with a writhing sacred snake, over the injury. The legend lives on in Offida: il serpente aureo (“golden snake”) recurs again and again in place names of the town: after visiting the nineteen-centruy frescoed theater, Teatro Serpente Aureo, we walked down Corso Serpente Aureo to the Ristorante Ophis (ah, that snake again!)
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