profile
map
start / finish
final kilometres
itinerary timetable
tourist info
Host city:
CHIETI
History
According to a seventeenth-century legend, the city was founded in 1181 BC. by the hero Achilles, who named it Teate in honor of his mother Thetis. The Homeric hero is also represented on the city’s coat of arms.
According to the legend reported by the historian Girolamo Nicolino, Chieti would be among the oldest cities in Italy and Abruzzo. The mythological origin of the city is also reported on a plaque near the Town Hall. How to show some artifacts preserved in the University Museum of Biomedical Sciences, the Theatine territory was inhabited since prehistoric times.
Local cuisine
The sagne a pezze, the tajarìll fasciule and pork rinds, the ‘ngrecciata and the pallotte cace e ove are culinary specialties from Theatine region. Among the traditional specialties of Italian cuisine we find strozzapreti, tagliolini, ‘ndocca a ‘ndocca pork offal, mutton, Teramo and Pennese tripe, wild boar, Adriatic fish stew (scorpion fish, prawns, octopuses and monkfish). Among the desserts, the cicerchiata teatina is typical for the Christmas period.
Local wines
Abruzzo DOC; Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo DOC; Colli del Sangro IGT; Colline Frentane IGT; Colline Teatine IGT; del Vastese o Histonium IGT; Montepulciano d’Abruzzo DOC; Montepulciano d’Abruzzo DOC sottozona Teate; Ortona DOC; Terre di Chieti IGT; Terre Tollesi o Tullum DOC; Trebbiano d’Abruzzo DOC; Villamagna DOC
San Salvo
Overview
Due to its natural disposition, the city of San Salvo was for centuries the south-eastern gate of Abruzzo. It is a city of 19,963 inhabitants located at 100 m. above sea level and 4 km from the Adriatic, on whose shores there is a very fine Sandy beach. San Salvo embodies different vocations. It is a city of the sea and summer holidays under its Blue Flag banner.
It is a riverside city with the Trigno river and its botanical and natural treasures. It is an agricultural city surrounded by olive trees and covered with crops .It is a city of travel, with ancient and modern routes: from the tratturo to the cycle path, from the motorway to the valley , from the fast railway to glorious national road.
Surprisingly, it is also a city of history. The historical story of San Salvo is, in fact, millenary, closely linked to the geographical position. After prehistory, its territory has known the Apennine civilization, woven relationships with Mycenaean and Greek world (II/I millennium BC) and saw the affirmation of italic civilization (6th-3rd century BC). With the romanization of Frentania (3rd-1st century BC), a city with rich domus was built on the current urban site, underground aqueduct and thermal baths, with a port at the mouth of the Trigno active in the trade (1st century BC-3rd century AD) with the whole Mediterranean.
The early Middle Ages was characterized by the establishment of two Benedictine monasteries: Sant’Angelo in Salavento and Santo Salvo (eponym of the town); the Late Middle Ages for that of the Cistercian abbey of San Vito del Trigno (13th century), in the homonymous river plain.
The 19th and early 20th centuries produced a slow but steady economic recovery (based on agriculture and handicrafts) and demographic which found the its climax in the phase of intense development of the forty years 1961-2000.
After the great peasant struggles (1950), the industrial settlements of the S.I.V. (1963, then Pilkington) and Magneti Marelli (1973, then Denso) together with the development related industries, commerce, tourism and services allowed a new, intense urbanization process allowing San Salvo to become the fastest growing city in population in Abruzzo. The city of San Salvo has always stood out for the industriousness and dynamism of its people. In the last decade excavations and archaeological discoveries have given new vigor to this impetus through the discovery of a previous historical identity unknown. All this has enriched an already rich and articulated tourist offer, made of nature, history, archeology, food and wine, sea, leisure and nautical pleasure.
Food
San Salvo’s territory is rich in genuine products, that are the result of a millennium old heritage of rural and country knowledge, enriched during the Middle Ages by thwith a huge varie great rural Cistercian tradition brought in this area by the monks of the SS Vito’s and Salvo’s Abbey. Among the many local products the olive stands out; its fruits are picked up before the full ripeness and processed in the same day, so that it gives the olive oil a fruity aroma, limpidness and a low rate of acidity.
The peach cultivation has a great importance in San Salvo and this fruit is exported in all Europe. The wine production has its excellences in some IGP wines such as the “Chardonnay della Provincia di Chieti”, the “Pecorino d’Abruzzo”, the “Sangiovese” and the “Trebbiano d’Abruzzo”; some DOC red wines such as the “Cerasuolo” and the “Montepulciano d’Abruzzo”.
San Salvo boasts an high level food tradition with a huge variety of home made pasta, sweets, and sausage products
like sausages, pepperoni, “soppressate”, “capicolli” and “ventricine”: these products are often home made, but in the last years their manufacturing production has a great success.
