Welcome to an Abruzzo summer ! Open-air music, village festivals, feasts with the best local food and wine – and more – all waiting on your Abruzzo villa holiday for two.

If there's such a thing as an 'official' start to an Abruzzo summer, it's probably the last weekend in May, when virtually every winery in the region flings open its doors for an indulgent and endlessly good-humoured 48-hours of wine-tasting, eating and entertainment. And that sets the scene nicely for the weekly round of feasts, festivals and fireworks that sparkle across the region into September.

Sagra and Festa
A sagra – and a festa too – are the excuses for an entire community to have a party. The word 'sagra' means 'feast' or 'festival'; 'festa' means 'holiday'. There's hardly a town or village in Abruzzo that doesn't have at least one sagra or festa during the year. But most operate on the principle of 'you can't have too much of a good thing' and stage two or three.

Any excuse will do. The local Saint's Day is always a must; a day devoted to a particular food or wine is another good bet; and so too are beautifully-staged parades and pageants; even – in nearby Tollo on August 9 – the recreation of a medieval battle between Christians and Turks.

From the incredible Sagre in Italia website, you'll see an Abruzzo summer crammed with 84 assorted sagre and feste scheduled between now and September. Abruzzo food and wine at its best. Feasts of truffles, fish, pasta, lamb, pecorino cheese, extra-virgin olive oil (of course !) and calzone – those impossibly delicious rolled pizzas. Concerts of endless musical variety; opera; plays; folklore, art – and reminders across the region that Siena's not the only town to stage a medieval horse race.

    

Festivals
Jazz in Pescara during August; film in Vasto right now. A season of orchestral concerts, opera and ballet at Chieti's wonderful Teatro Marrucino from early spring into June; Blues at Lanciano next week. You'll start to develop an eagle eye for the posters that appear overnight advertising these treats, because – unlike the sagre and feste – there's no centralised information network for these festivals. A poster; a call from a friend; the fact you went last year; or a bit of judicious trawling online provide the information network we rely on !

Fireworks
The one common thread that links pretty well all the entertainment you'll find waiting to be discovered during your Abruzzo villa holiday for two.

There's scarcely an event that doesn't end with a spectacular, sensational, deafening display. Or start with one – as in the case of Lanciano's legendary firework welcome to the Ferrogosto holiday on August 15 which begins at 4am. (Yes, really).

More traditional – in that it happens at night ! – is the firework eruption that ends the three-day Abruzzo food and wine spectacular in nearby Fara San Martino, nestling under the lowering mountains of the Majella National Park. The setting for the fireworks here is so breathtakingly unique that I won't spoil the surprise for you here. Just go. Eat, drink – and be truly amazed.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 at 3:25 am and is filed under About Abruzzo, Daily Life, Eating and Drinking, Sightseeing, Villages, Where To Go. 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.