We were up and at ‘em Wednesday morning, cleaned up the Orvieto apartment and checked out. Nicola arrived around 10:30, we had a caffè and a cornetto and then weaved our way down the mountain to the superstrada towards Rome. At Tivoli, we turned East towards the Adriatic Sea and Pescara. We arrived at our B&B, the Colle Acqua Bella, or Hill of Beautiful Water, in Ortona around 4:00PM.

The B&B is quite nice although it is a B&B and not an AirBNB apartment. It has a bedroom and a bathroom, both quite sufficient. The building itself is the home of the owner and wife, his daughter and two kids, plus three rooms to let. It was quiet, clean and had access to some nice walking trails, one that would take you down to the coast.

My cousin, Gabriella, lives about ten houses down the street from the B&B so you can guess where we ate. 

As an aside, this was the location of a significant battle between the Canadians and Germans in WW II – the Moro River Crossing. There is a sign commemorating the battle – see the photo. Just down the road, perhaps a quarter mile, is the Canadian Cemetery where the Canadians who died in the battle of the Moro River are buried. Like most cemeteries in Europe, this one is well cared for by the locals.

Thursday was market day in Ortona so we spent the morning there. It is still hard to believe that the vendors bring out tables and tables and racks and racks of clothes and house utensils in the early morning, sell all day, pack up at night and then move on to the next town that evening! 

At the lower end of the street and closer to the harbor is St Thomas the Apostle Concattedrale – yes, that’s co-cathedral. There are two cathedrals that serve the Lanciano-Ortona Diocese. And yes, we’ve been to both, the Lanciano cathedral back in 2016. This basilica though is famous for hosting some of the relics of Saint Thomas.

The food market is actually hosted in a large building. The number of vendors seems less than the first time we came to Ortona but certainly adequate for what we needed.

While downtown, we stopped by Antonino’s shop where he has several machines to handle local document and photo reproduction needs. And my favorite pasta factoria is next door to Antonino’s plus just around the corner is the panificio or bread factory or shop. I use the word factoria or factory because both the pasta and the breads are produced in those facilities. Returning to Gabriella’s house, we had a nice big lunch complete with wine and afterwards coffee and ginseng liqueur. The combination did a number on Jim and he was out for the night!

All was normal Friday morning. In fact, Jim took a stroll out to the Punta dell’Acquabella or Point of the Beautiful Water and caught the sunrise across the Adriatic. An hour or so later, we went down to the Port of Ortona and walked out on the breakwaters and around the marina. We stopped for un caffè as well.

Late morning, we headed off to Lanciano and the apartment where Gabriella’s daughter and grandson live. Alice was on a bicycle excursion in Puglia, Southern Italy, but Achille, her son, came home from school for lunch, Gabriella doing the cooking of course. It was Friday, Achille loves fish, so it was sardines and tomatoes followed by prawns and spaghetti for lunch. I must say we saw a marked improvement in Achille’s English-speaking ability on this trip. Plus, of great pleasure to Jim, he is very interested in Japanese culture.

On Saturday, it was time to relocate up to Monteferrante where it is a little cooler but not unbearable. We packed up and left the B&B around 10:00, to wait at Gabriella’s for Antonino to close shop for the weekend. While waiting, Gabriella made a frittata from which we would make sandwiches for a planned picnic that afternoon. While waiting, Jim again took a nice long walk around the area, seeing again the things that influence us to like Italy – vineyards, olive groves, fig trees and farmed fields mixed in with houses and barns along a country road. 

When we headed out in the afternoon, as in 2022, it seemed Antonino drove us all over Abruzzo but our objective was the source of the Acqua Verde or Green Water. Not only is that water perfectly clear, it is the only water used in the production of De Cecco pasta products. The De Cecco factory is in fact located only a few hundred yards downstream from the source spring. So we parked up near the source, ate our picnic sandwiches and drank our fill of the fresh, cold water. All this time we could smell the aroma of arrosticini – those delightful, charcoal-roasted lamb kebobs famous here in Abruzzo. We bought a dozen!

We then drove on over to Monteferrante, passing through must have been a dozen other little towns dotting the countryside. It had been raining a little and as we were headed down and across this one valley, there was a beautiful rainbow, sort of wrapping up another wonderful day in Italy. Yup, liking this slow life!