Tuesday morning, we had our first breakfast at the B&B. Carlo’s wife, Francesca, brought out cheese, cold cuts, slice bread, butter, water, coffee, and “cornettos” (basically Italian style croissants). I don’t enjoy the Italy version as much as I do the French and Belgian, because the Italian version is less buttery. But the cornettos are probably marginally healthier. They gave us plain ones and ones with marmalade.
After breakfast, we decided to drive to Gissi (pronounced Gee-see), a little hilltop hamlet I had noticed offered some inexpensive homes for sale. As I mentioned before, we weren’t looking at any specific properties. We were just in Abruzzo to look around and assess whether or not we’d want to buy property there.
On the way out of the neighborhood, we encountered two guys driving a horse. That was something I don’t see everyday, so I got a photo…
Little did we know, the above horse photo wouldn’t be the only one I’d be taking. The GPS sent us to a rural road where there was a traffic jam. We soon realized that there was a guy there trying to hitch a horse to a “sulky”, which is a type of “chariot” type vehicle used for harness racing. I didn’t know it before our visit to Abruzzo, but apparently, they train horses for harness racing there. Pretty country abounds…
Once we got past the horses, we found ourselves in some extremely beautiful scenery…
As we drove up a hillside, we saw the outskirts of Gissi, which turned out to be a beautiful little town. I could see myself living there and liking it, as long as we found the right property. There’s a big free parking lot in the middle of town.
Unfortunately, when it came time for lunch, we couldn’t find anything open. I suspect that it was because it was early March. Bill and I went to a Tigros Market (grocery store) and bought snacks. The market was very small, but had the essentials on two floors. It wasn’t ideal, but it got the job done for me, as my blood sugar suddenly bottomed out.
After we walked around Gissi, we decided to move on to Vasto, which is a beautiful city by the coast. I also really liked Vasto, and could see myself living there. It’s much bigger than Gissi is, of course, and offers restaurants and services. However, it’s important to note that siesta is still very much a thing in that part of Italy and others. Most everything shuts down at about 1:00 PM and stays closed for a couple of hours.
We were fortunate enough to find a restaurant, 12 Cantin, that was open for lunch in Vasto. They were playing music, which alerted us to their lunchtime availability. We were fortunate to find this eatery, as the food was excellent, and the service was very friendly. The waiter even gave me a hug when we were leaving! I had sea bream with vegetables and Bill had tuna. We probably should have had more courses.
We walked around a little bit more in Vasto. I got some more photos, and we lucked into an open public restroom that was even somewhat clean. Then, as the afternoon got later, we headed back to Pescara. We stopped to pick up some wine and snacks, and then decided we were in for the night. Again, after driving around all day, we weren’t really feeling like driving for dinner… and the B&B was not nearly any place we could walk to with ease… I think we will probably add Gissi and Vasto to our list of places where we might like to see properties. Both had their own unique charms, in different ways…
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