Overview
If you are passionate about the rural civilisation, this summer let’s organise a stay in Tione degli Abruzzi, in the province of L'Aquila.
A land of woods and silence in the Sirente-Velino Regional Park, which offers you ancient highland areas at an altitude of over a thousand metres. Here, you can find tiny limestone dwellings that is, the Pagliare, namely the site of seasonal migrations typical of the so-called vertical transhumance.
From a distance, they look like the villages of the Smurfs.
To reach the ancient buildings, take the mule track that starts from the hamlet of Goriano Valli, climbing up to the pastoral village, with hundreds of small two-storey cottages. These cottages – built around a well – served as shelters for people on the upper floor, and as haystacks or shelter for animals on the lower floor, equipped with underground cisterns to collect rainwater.
An incredible open-air museum, freezed in a motionless time and on an unchanged plateau where – already in the Middle Ages – farmers and shepherds of the Subequana Valley climbed to cultivate the land and graze their flocks after the harsh winter.
In other words, these were their “holiday homes”. With the silent Sirente massif offering unforgettable views, you will be stunned by the beauty of the surrounding landscape.
Now go back to Tione. Here, you can ask the municipality or Pro Loco for educational and non-educational activities to be experienced in the Pagliare and admire the medieval centre, dominated by the crenellated medieval tower, known as the clock tower.
The tower was built to defend the territory and, together with those of the other territories – Beffi, Goriano Valli and Roccapreturo – constituted a medieval control system over the countryside of L'Aquila.
Just a few kilometres away, don't miss the fortified hamlet of Santa Maria del Ponte. Here you will find stretches of walls, two entrance gates with a Gothic arch and the collegiate church of the same name, with the remains of the ancient church, dating back to the 12th century and incorporated into the current religious monument.
Remember that you are in the land of Abruzzo's “red gold”, that is, saffron. Therefore, you must buy the typical one-gram jars containing the precious stigmas or the sachets with the “magic powder” that turns a simple risotto into a dish fit for kings. (The quality is the same, but the stigmas are more valuable because they also decorate the dish beyond flavouring food).
Smell the product and observe its consistency. The powder obtained by drying the stigmas has been known and used for millennia for its high colouring power and intense aroma. Of Middle Eastern origin and very resistant to the cold, saffron was brought to Sicily by the Arabs and spread throughout the peninsula, but only prospered in the Abruzzo region of L'Aquila, assuming a decisive role in the local economy.
If you want to experience the harvesting of this spice with aphrodisiac powers, come to Tione degli Abruzzi around mid-October, when the flowering begins and lasts about 20 days.
However, you must get up at dawn, when the corolla is still closed.
The cut flowers are collected in wicker baskets and opened – one at a time – using fingernail to separate the stigmas from the stylus. Then, they are laid on a sieve hanged over the hot ashes of the fireplace to toast the product slowly and evenly.
Are you up for it?
You will be rewarded with truffle delicacies, legume soups, local sausages, lamb meat and, of course, saffron in abudance.
What else to see:
- The Church of San Vincenzo
- The Church and convent of San Giorgio, in Goriano Valli
- The Church of Santa Giusta, in Goriano Valli
- The Church of the Holy Trinity, in Goriano Valli