Leave Villasfor2 in Ascigno and head for Casoli, where you’ll pick up the signs for Gessopalena. Twenty minutes later, you’ll be looking at one of Abruzzo’s best-known – and best-loved landmarks.

La Morgia is a massively-imposing wedge-shaped chunk of limestone, 130 metres (426 feet) high, that squats midway between Gessopalena and Torricella Peligna. In the mid-1990s, after exhaustive and persuasive discussions, the region of Abruzzo, the province of Chieti and the comunes of La Majella gave their permission for several natural features in the area to be used as settings and components for a series of integrated artworks.

The Greek artist Costas Varotsos chose to work on La Morgia, with the specific aim of bridging the distinctive notch at the crest caused by mining…

We figure we have a month – maybe a little more – before the bulldozers move in to demolish the existing beyond-renovation ruins on our Abruzzo property and work starts in earnest on building our new home and our special holiday villas for two. We’ve salvaged all the old roof and ceiling tiles we could reach – 1013 of them ! – without risking serious injury, or worse, by clambering over desperately unstable walls and beams to get more, so having done what we can for the moment outside, it seemed a good time to see what lay inside our two long-abandoned houses.