Between Ortona and Vasto, forty-two kilometres of Adriatic coast have escaped the concrete: cliffs, pebble coves, pine woods and the trabocchi, the wooden fishing machines jutting out over the water that Gabriele d'Annunzio described as "a colossal spider". The old Adriatic railway line, abandoned when the track was moved inland, has been converted into the Via Verde: a flat cycle and footpath linking seven towns along the shoreline. Seven stages taking in a Benedictine abbey built over a temple of Venus, two regional nature reserves, a sixteenth-century Marian sanctuary and the seafood cooking of the Vasto area.
The journey begins at the largest port on the Chieti coast. Since 6 September 1258 the cathedral of Saint Thomas the Apostle has held the apostle's relics, brought from Chios by the Ortona captain Leone Acciaiuoli: the town has been a pilgrimage destination ever since. Above the sea stands the Aragonese castle, trapezoidal in plan with four cylindrical towers, built in the mid-fifteenth century and mutilated in 1943. Between 21 and 28 December of that year the town was destroyed house by house in the battle between German and Canadian troops; the Moro River war cemetery, just outside the built-up area, holds more than 1,600 graves. The Via Verde starts at Ortona Lido.
Ten kilometres further south, below the headland of Capo Turchino, stands the best known trabocco in Abruzzo. This is the Turchino of The Triumph of Death: d'Annunzio spent the summer of 1889 in the hermitage at Portelle, just above, and the novel published in 1894 grew out of that stay. Owned by the municipality since 1981, the Turchino is not a restaurant but a monument open to visitors by appointment, restored after being nominated to the FAI's "Places of the Heart" campaign. The surrounding coast alternates low cliffs, shingle and olive groves running down to the water's edge.
The village stands 155 metres above sea level, ringed by its medieval walls, and belongs to the association of Italy's most beautiful villages. Below it lies the most indented stretch of the whole route: the beaches of La Foce and Cavalluccio, both Blue Flag, can only be reached on foot or by bicycle from the Via Verde. The municipal territory counts seven trabocchi — Punta Cavalluccio, Punta Torre, Spezzacatena, La Foce, Punta Isolata, Valle Grotte and Punta Tufano — and several work as restaurants by reservation, with menus dictated by the day's catch. Just inland, Montepulciano grapes and Gentile di Chieti olives are grown.
On a hill 107 metres high, its façade turned towards the Sangro, stands the abbey of San Giovanni in Venere. The name records the layers: the Frentani people worshipped Venus Conciliatrix here, protector of the family, and in the sixth century an oratory dedicated to John the Baptist was raised over the pagan temple. Trasmondo, count of Chieti, had church and monastery rebuilt in 1015; in 1165 abbot Oderisio II gave the building its present form, one of the earliest examples of Cistercian taste in Abruzzo. The carved stone Portal of the Moon survives, together with the three-apse crypt with thirteenth-century frescoes and a cloister looking out over olive groves and sea.
Past the mouth of the Sangro the route enters the Lecceta di Torino di Sangro regional nature reserve, established in 2001: 175 hectares of holm oak and downy oak above the sea, one of the last coastal woods on the Adriatic. It shelters the largest population of land tortoises in Abruzzo and is crossed by open trails, including the one dropping to the trabocchi and the one leading to the Sangro River War Cemetery, where Commonwealth soldiers of the Gustav Line are buried. Below the reserve, Le Morge beach alternates pebbles and Mediterranean scrub.
Inland, a few minutes from the coast, stands the sanctuary of the Madonna dei Miracoli, born of the apparition of 11 June 1576 to Alessandro Muzio, a farmer from Pollutri, after a hailstorm had destroyed the harvest. The June pilgrimage is still the most attended in the area and has entered literature: d'Annunzio visited it in 1889 and turned it into one of the harshest chapters of The Triumph of Death. The marina, with its sandy beach and pine wood, closes the flattest section of the Via Verde before the mouth of the Sinello.
The final stage crosses the Punta Aderci nature reserve, the first protected coastal area in Abruzzo (1998): 285 hectares from Punta Penna beach to the mouth of the Sinello, taking in the headland, the shingle of Mottagrossa and the Punta Penna lighthouse, 70 metres tall, the second highest in Italy after the Lanterna in Genoa. The old town of Vasto sits on a natural terrace: Palazzo d'Avalos, residence of the marquises until 1806, houses the civic museums and Neapolitan gardens overlooking the gulf, while the Loggia Amblingh runs along the edge. The table brings brodetto alla vastese, cooked in an earthenware pan without turning the fish, and ventricina del Vastese, a Slow Food Presidium.
The Via Verde is almost entirely flat and paved: it can be cycled in a day, or two at an easy pace, and suits families as well. A few short sections are still being completed and are diverted onto ordinary roads. May, June and September are the best months: the sea is usable, crowds are thin and temperatures suit cycling; July and August are for the early hours. The trabocco restaurants work from April to October and need booking several days ahead. Drivers have the SS16 running parallel to the coast, with signposted descents to the coves.
Behind the coast the land climbs straight into hills of olive groves, Montepulciano d'Abruzzo and Trebbiano vineyards and vegetable fields: this is where the farm stays are, minutes from the sea and the Via Verde, and cheaper than the seafront hotels. Many holdings produce extra virgin olive oil, wine and preserves, and the cooking combines the catch with country tradition — pasta alla chitarra, pallotte cacio e ova, seasonal vegetables. Several places lend bicycles for reaching the cycle path and arrange visits to the oil mill during the harvest, between October and November.
