Overview
Villages whose name comes from a tree are by nature pleasant and hospitable; those that in addition have a manor house and a typical dish that defines them are all to be discovered.
Elice is among them. It is located in the province of Pescara, perched on a hill overlooking the northern side of the valley of the Fino River.
Its name comes from holm oak or elk, the evergreen tree "cousin" of the oak, and the castle that dominates it is the majestic heart of its history and essence.
After years of being inaccessible due to damage caused by the 2009 earthquake, the manor has been secured and restored and by the end of the summer you will be able to admire it in its new and ancient appearance.
Already in 1051 there is mention of the fortification, which was sold a few years to the Abbey of San Giovanni in Venere by Count Guglielmo Tassone, complete with men, land, buildings and belongings. After various passages, the property belonged to the Castiglione family until 1806 and later to other owners. For the past 20 years it has been owned by the municipality.
You can observe its masonry, mostly of brick, executed with the traditional dry-stone technique. The entrance portal leads you into a vaulted hallway at the sides of which there are rooms once used as cellars, stables and servants' and guards' lodgings, with narrow internal staircases and small slits typical of the period.
On the second floor, you will find a large hall and a chapel, with small niches in the wall and three iron grates from which people could attend the religious rites of the nearby church of Santa Maria e San Martino, which was connected to the castle through a corridor supported by a low arch: a unique case in Abruzzo, in which two buildings are proposed as a single architectural block, connected by a vaulted passage.
The original foundation of the church dates back to the mid-11th century, but what you see is its 19th-century reconstruction, which followed the disastrous 1802 earthquake that caused its partial destruction.
And following the holm oak and the castle, here is Elice's typical dish: pasta alla mugnaia that is the focus of a very popular festival in the summer, which we recommend attending.
The dough, which is a mix of durum wheat flour, soft wheat flour and eggs, is in the shape of a single long, flattened, hand-pulled cordon, about an inch in diameter, which is cooked and seasoned with meat sauce, (usually veal and pork), sautéed in chopped onion, peppers and carrots, and tomato sauce, diced fresh tomatoes and eggplant.
The ancient manicaretto, according to the tradition, was prepared even in late medieval times thanks to the presence of the many mills that stood on the shores of the Fino, producing a beautifully made flour, ground slowly and kneaded with a special technique, whose handling was reminiscent of milking cows.