Pbenjay's Blog

A DAY IN ATRI – A PHOTO ESSAY

We never saw the Duomo in Penne (I walked as far as I wanted to in the heat) nor did we get to see the famous Divine Judgement painting on the wall of the church in Loreto  Aprutino, a town very close to Penne. The church where the fresco resides, St. Mary in Piano, was destroyed in th last earthquake and has yet to be restored.  We walked around a bit to see if the Olive Oil Museum was open but it probably wasn’t and we didn’t locate it anyway. The town was very nice and clean and we rested in a shady piazza before we headed back.

SO, this day we decide to drive to Atri and perhaps we will see a few frescos.  It wasn’t that far, and we found a parking spot right away ( probably a bad omen ).  We walked into this huge piazza, with some shops (all closed naturally) on our left and on our right, a very large church with two open doorways,

We are in this huge piazza and only the gelato place is open.

Possible frescos? We follow a lady through one of the doorways only to come up against another old wooden door. I cautiously pushed it open and  in we went and weren’t we surprised to find the church absolutely filled!  We found two seats and sat in respectful silence not understanding the Italian.  We waited for the appropriate moment and then made a hasty retreat from the church, because we realized fresco or not, we definitely did not want to attend this funeral!!  Once we were back in the sunlight, we saw the hearse, well enough of that.  Let’s go into that other doorway. We did and found ourselves in a chapel at right angle to the funeral mass.

This impressive chapel was behind another old wooden door.

Once out in the sunlight again, we walked up a winding street looking in the windows of closed shops and pretty alleys.

It was tempting to wander down one of these streets.

Inviting us to wander down

We must have been on the main  road in the town because there were many smaller alleys branching off to the left and the right.

Flowers flowers everywhere

Being in Italy and visiting small villages, the vast amount of flowers everywhere always thrilled me as well as ancient or unusual doorways.

This brilliant color was glorious with flowers.

Blooming Color in Shades Of Rose

I find these doors intriguing – what lies behind them?

Barbara leads the way. Note how clean the streets are!

The amount of flowers surrounding this house was amazing!

We found this little shrine niche. Devotion to the Blessed Virgin is universal throughout Italy

Barbara and I have our own Italian mantra, “It’s finally four”.  As in 4:00pm and the shops are open again.  We learned that Atri was famous for the production of licorice and some licorice liquors and when we came upon a store window featuring a lot of bottles with mysterious names, we went in.  Oh my, there were big glass canisters of licorice in various shapes, boxes of flavored licorices, strands of licorice hanging.  I bought a small bag of pieces on the semi-truthful pretense that I needed something to suck on for my wicked sore throat.  We hemmed and hawed and in the end Barbara bought some fabulous candy but neither of bought the liquor – why? Basically our suitcases are already pretty full!

However I did spot something in the store I thought photo worthy.  What with all the talk of racism at home and politically correct language, this jumped out at me.

Hard to believe in this day and age!

I found a jewelry shop and had to add another troll bead to my bracelet.  I like to take my part in boosting Italy’s sagging economy.  A quick gelato and a walk through a lovely park and then we went on the hunt for a particular restaurant.

I set the GPS for the address ( which is always a 50/50 chance of success). We went back and forth, she sent us down private driveways and actually in the wrong direction. When I was screaming that I was done with this because I was headed down a road directly to hell,  I looked across the road and there was the restaurant! You see she had us the wrong side of the road!!

The restaurant was just what we needed at that time. First of all it had a fresco ( of sorts)

Look a fresco!

And pizza!

Barbara LOVED her arugula pizza bianca

And I love my authentic Neapolitan pizza

Look no cheese!

Just another day of adventure in Italy.

To be continued…

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