Italy: a hill town in the Ciociaria region (part 2)

After the views of wide open spaces from the hilltop town walls of a local hill town, the walk through the narrow streets to the main piazza was quite a contrast.  There are interesting mosaics and murals to see along the way done by a local art academy and the little passageways, courtyards and old buildings add to the pleasure of a walk which takes you through different levels of the town.

I hope you enjoy the pictorial walk!

                                 The castle and palace from the promontory below.

One of the mosaics depicting the life of St. Thomas Aquinas.

The church in the piazza

I included this photo taken a few years ago

when there was a festival with musical entertainment.

The piazza was full of cars because of the Saturday market.

The evening before it would have been full of trestle tables and food stalls

as there had been a festival associated with St. Thomas Aquinas.

We had coffee in a little cafe in the piazza before returning home to our village.

                                                                   

      Everywhere along the way the mimosa trees were in full bloom.

Italy: a hill town in the Ciociaria region (part 1)

The small hill town of Monte San Giovanni Campano is in our locality and looking down at the valley below from the terraced walkway we can see the road we take to get back to our house in those distant hills.

Monte San Giovanni Campano, originally called Castelforte, is another one of the walled towns perched on a hilltop with a castle and often a Renaissance palace.  Monte San Giovanni has both - an 11th century castle which was the property of the Counts of Aquino and a 16th century ducal palace. The town is famous mainly because Landalfo and Theodora d'Aquino, the owners of the castle and surrounding land, kept their son a prisoner there for two years to try and prevent him joining the Dominican religious order.  Young Thomas escaped from his prison cell, helped by his sister, moved to Cologne where he did, in fact, enter into a studious religious life and became an important theologian.

From the vantage point of the hilltop there are views of the entire valleys to the east and to the west. We drove up the winding road on the east side before parking and walking into the historic centre. The town is also known as 'Olive Oil Town' due the numerous olive trees that are cultivated on the hillsides.

       

Some houses and apartments are built into the side of the hill and others are perched on rocky outcrops.

There have been assaults on the town over the centuries. The ducal castle had many look-out towers, two prisons, one for men and one for women and there were underground tunnels for easy movement inside the fortified walls.  Even today the rabbit-warren of narrow passages feels very enclosed especially as there's only one main entrance into the small main piazza by way of a narrow, twisting street. 

  

Part of the castle has been converted into a restaurant and like many others in the area specialises in regional cuisine.

Another view from the eastern side of Monte San Giovanni. After walking through the town on the western side, passing the Saturday market stalls, we continued uphill and stopped for a coffee in the piazza.

A time in Italy

 We've just got back from our time in Italy and it's been good to find the promise of Springtime in both countries with much better weather than previous months.

The outward journey by plane and train to south of Rome was uneventful (in contrast to the journey back because of cancelled trains to Rome when we had to find an alternative transport i.e. bus and metro) and it was good to see the familiar mountains and villages of the Ciociaria region.

It doesn't take long to get back into our usual routine once we're home in Italy, but since we're limited for time and there's a lot to do, especially in the garden, we always hope that the weather stays dry in the early months of the year.  In fact, we arrived to cold, wet weather and it was important to get the fire on and warm up the house in the upstairs apartment. (We have two storeys in our family home which is now split up into identical apartments and these days we use the upstairs apartment which can be heated by wood-fired central heating or gas).  The weather soon improved, so it was a pleasure to look out over the garden then enjoy what was growing and coming into season.  It was also good to see the various insects coming to life in the sunshine.

Mr P. soon got to work in the garden pruning the vines and the fruit trees - more about that another time. Some old wooden pergola poles, originally cut from our trees in the wood on the opposite hill to the house, had to be replaced. They needed to be chopped up and stored for future firewood.

At the end of a sunny day the snow on the distant mountains seemed to turn pink as the sun set.

I'll share some more of our trip to Italy soon.  Meanwhile, I hope that everything is going well with you where you live and you have a good week.

We're enjoying the Spring flowers that are blooming in our garden and neighbourhood. DH has lots to do bringing his plants on in the UK garden plot.

A view from the kitchen window this morning - lovely blue skies, although quite windy out.

 A happy St. Patrick's Day tomorrow!