Scanno

The plan was to stay in Abruzzo for a week or so. We weren’t sure how long Sulmona would play out, so we looked around for another city to visit. Abruzzo is a very mountainous region that contains the single greatest area of National Parks in all of Europe. There is minimal train access but a very extensive network of buses that goes throughout. We weren’t going to be equipped for a proper trip to a National Park, but then again, we weren’t really sure what a National Park in Italy would actually be like. From my first trip to Europe I knew from experience that, as an American, my expectations were much higher than what the continent could deliver. Too many people, too much history. Our park system in American is truly one of our greatest treasures.

What we found is that the Abruzzo region is such a mountainous region and parts of it are so remote that there really are some world-class parks and wilderness areas. Our bus ride to Scanno, the remote mountain town that we decided to visit for a few days, made it clear that Italy has some territory that, if not still wild, is truly remote and undeveloped. There are a series of little mountain towns that populate its peaks and valleys, a landscape that look more like West Virginia than Oregon, and these towns are old. The medieval center to Scanno was built over 1000 years ago. The little towns that we passed through on our way there were at least as old. To an Americani who as a fifth grader celebrated the 25^th anniversary of the city he lived in, it takes some work to fathom.

Scanno has fashioned itself as a bit of a resort destination, but just barely. There is a lake, which we visited; there is a ski resort, which was closed (one of the attractions that had lured us was that you could ride the lift and hike the ridge – again, closed), and that was about it. Yet, after all we’ve done so far, Scanno holds a special place for us. It was a stony island in a sea of green that had been there for centuries. From the main piazza you could look out and see no other towns, lights, development, or other sign of civilization. Only forest. I can only imagine the isolation that people there lived through, the lack of information of the outside world, when they built the tiny little corridors of the city center. The solidarity the inhabitants must have found amongst each other. The way that knowledge was passed down from person to person. Somehow this place endured for centuries. It can only be since the advent of the automobile that people were able to get in and out with any sort of relative ease. I can’t even imagine how long it took for them to get telephone service. The isolation of this place was driven home when it was time to check out of our hotel. The communication with the banks was down. No credit cards were being run, no ATM machines were working. Luckily we were flush with cash and the buses were on time.

One of my favorite memories of the trip so far was when Rachel woke me up one night and showed me the Big Dipper framed in the window of our hotel room. The windows were those typical Italian windows which you keep shuttered all day long to keep the heat our and then throw open at night to let the air in. No screens, a few bugs, but that Big Dipper was so close I felt like it could have scooped us out of our bed and let is sleep in its ladle.

What else happened in Scanno? Rachel got me a poster of a wolf and a bear. I had been making small talk for the past few days with the good people of Sulmona about their wild animals. It’s a great conversation piece if you don’t speak the language to ask people about the biggest, baddest animals they have in their neck of the woods and then have them tell you stories about them. Even if you don’t know much Italian, you can imagine what animals do, and people have stories. I met a kid who was in a car that hit a wild boar just two weeks before. The boar was fine, but the car was damaged really badly. So I’d been asking all sorts of silly questions about bears and wolves and boars (oh my!) for the past few days. Rachel told the lady in the tourist office that her husband really likes wolves and would love a poster. I got one of a bear too. They are really cool. I’m going to hang it over my bed.

I’m sure that when we return to Italy we will make Abruzzo a definite destination, even if Rachel didn’t have family that lived there. It’s scenery is stunning, there is lots to do in the great outdoors, it’s not overrun with tourists (or Italians for that matter), and you don’t feel like if you aren’t staring at some fresco or statue you are missing the point. It’s the people, the landscape, the food, and the history that sold us, not the art. After being exposed to so much art in Rome, it felt really comfortable. We’ll be back every time.