Your holiday in Abruzzo just has to include a visit to a typical Abruzzo market. When you’re staying with us, the best and easiest to get to is at nearby Casalbordino.

All but the very smallest villages have a regular weekly market - in Casoli, just 4 miles away from your Villas for 2 base, it's every Friday - but if you want the full-on Abruzzo market experience, head off to Casalbordino's regular Sunday morning extravaganza. The town itself is delightful; a few miles inland from the Adriatic coast with some fine old streets and buildings. 

As with all other Italian markets, Casalbordino's is just as much a social occasion - a chance to see your friends and catch up on the week's gossip - as well as the opportunity to do a bit of shopping.

And you can buy pretty much anything:

• clothes and shoes
• pots, pans and bits'n'pieces for the kitchen
• fabrics for clothes and furnishings
• watches and sunglasses
• toys
• strange-looking electrical gadgets for the home and car
• handbags, suitcases and rucksacks
• plants, flowers, fruit trees and shrubs
• 'things'

Browse. Learn the key phrase: 'Sto dando uno sguardo' - 'I'm just looking.' You'll need it, because stallholders can detect a potential sale when you're 50m away.

There isn't the usual practice of haggling over the price there is in some countries - especially not for something costing just a few euros - but for anything else, it's always worth adopting a wistful expression, sighing and saying,  'E' bello…pero e' un po caro…' - 'It's lovely…but it's a bit expensive…' - and seeing what happens ! 

When you've exhausted the retail opportunities outside - time to move inside, because there's a specially-built under-cover section for:

• fresh fruit and vegetables
• fish and meat
• cheese. A lot of cheese…
• salami. A lot of salami…
• bread

 With the obvious exception of tropical fruit on the fruit'n'veg stalls, this is all locally-produced food and you won't find better variety, quality or prices anywhere. 

Then go back outside again for…

• …the Porchetta van

 As you'll quickly realise during your holiday in Abruzzo, the Porchetta van is something of an institution. Along with pizza, porchetta is Italy's favourite fast food. What is porchetta ? A boned, whole, slow-roasted piglet of extraordinary succulence. That's the basis - but each van-owner has his/her own secret recipe to add a little extra something.

Buy 'quattro etti' - 400 grams. That should cost €4-5 and form the basis of an excellent Sunday lunch picnic; or spend a couple of euros for a generous slice or two of porchetta in a panini to eat there and then.

Incidentally, if the van-owner offers you an extra piece of crackling or another little tasty titbit on the house, it's very bad form to refuse !

Get to the market by around 10.00 - or even earlier. By midday, the stalls are closing; the bars are open - and it's time to start thinking about lunch. We'll tell you the best places to go !

In addition to Casalbordino, there are other good weekly markets in Lanciano (Saturday) and Guardiagrele (Sunday). Both are nearer than Casalbordino - but parking can be a problem. 

Here's a pretty definitive list of all Abruzzo's weekly markets - remember Villas for 2 is in Chieti province.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 1:57 pm and is filed under Shopping, Where To Go, Daily Life, About Abruzzo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.