Overview
Its location is indicated by the very name of the hamlet, Colledimezzo, which you see popping up on the Castellano hill. It is divided in turn by two adjoining hills, Mount Butino and Mount Rinello.
A blue spot, to the right of the village, characterizes the panorama: it is Lake Sangro (or Lake Bomba), an artificial lake created sixty years ago by the artificial stopbank of the Sangro River in the nearby of Municipality of Bomba.
The lake stretches for 7 kilometres with a depth varying from a minimum level at the entrance of the tributary, near Villa Santa Maria, to a maximum of 57 meters and a half.
An attractive natural "location" that, thanks to a lovely tourist center with bungalows and a children's playground, can welcome you with its colors and activities, such as sport fishing for chubs, carps, royal perch, tenches, eels and trouts, or canoeing, windsurfing and water skiing.
For those of you who can't fish or ride the waves, there are other possibilities, for example you can rent a pedal boat to enjoy the natural scenery around the artificial lake safely.
In the tiny historic centre, you can admire the D'Avalos Castle, once the historic residence of the family of the same name that dominated the town along with other fiefdoms. You can also visit the church of San Giovanni Evangelista e Apostolo, which is decorated with frescoes and paintings that decorate the walls and ceilings. These decorations are mostly the work of Donato Teodoro, an 18th-century Theatine painter.
Here you can also admire a copy of the painting by Tanzio da Varallo, one of the greatest artists of the Italian seventeenth century. The painting depicts the "Madonna and Child, St. Francis of Assisi and the patron," which is evidence of an ancient local devotion to St. Francis, which was probably still strong in the late seventeenth century, when one of the two fairs held in the village was dedicated to the saint.
Currently the precious work is awaiting to be displayed in the Diocesan Museum in Chieti.
The Church of San Rocco, the first you encounter in the village, is also worth a visit: a religious monument with three naves, decorated simply with local frescoes and with a small single-bell tower, still rung by hand, which is usually used for summer functions.
Near the cemetery, however, stands the church of Sant’Antonio, the result of various renovations that have taken place over the centuries. Only the holy water stoup remains of the original 18th-century church.