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Showing posts from December, 2017

Pollutri - now that's a cook up

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We have experienced some incredible places in Italy, but the reason we are here is Pollutri, a village a few kilometres inland from Vasto and the place where Maria's father grew up and where her two of her cousins still live. with their extended families. Pollutri is home to Anna and Giovanni, wonderfully hospitable and gentle people who have made us feel like we belong here. A happy coincidence is our visit being at the time of the biggest village celebration of the year, the San Nicola bean festival, a key feature of which is a massive cook-up of locally grown beans which are then eaten as part of the family celebration. Maria's father was named after 'Saint Nicholas'. Having already visited the houses where he lived in the narrow roads below, it was difficult to imagine him as a boy in the medieval streets of the hilltop town centre. Imagine rows of massive pots (the kind used in historical movies in which people where cooked alive!) full of broad beans, and

Vasto

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Vasto has taken our breath away and stolen our hearts, in part because Maria has yet again nailed the accommodation. But it is home for Maria's cousin Vincenzo and his family who live in what we have fondly been referring to as the DiCooco compound, a cluster of homes that has been in the family for generations and now renoovated into beautiful modern homes surrounded by their orchards, veggie gardens, vineyards and olive groves, from which they produce fabulous home grown food and drink. Guisippina's gnocchi, which Rachel helped make, was worth travelling to Italy for.

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