Discovering Vasto*
House hunting is like any other form of hunting, it’s dependent on being in the right place at the right time and waiting for the right opportunity.
My wife Kersti and I were on a leisurely trip through Southern Italy, with the intent of eventually finding a second home. For us, the choice of Italy was easy. We had always recognized and appreciated the Italian’s success in preserving a way of life that managed the delicate balance between the ancient and the modern, the secular and the religious. Italy was a country where the well-worn and the grand coexisted and complimented each other, and where the seeds of a hurried, impersonal society seemed to grow more slowly.
Over the years, we had traveled along the Mediterranean coast from Cinque Terra in Liguria to Sicily, and from Puglia up to Marche, on the Adriatic coast. On our hunt, we also searched through the Apennines, where ancient villages clung tenuously to the mountain sides. The houses that perched precariously on one another seemed suspended in time, their facades gracefully aged by the sun and the wind had an enticing charm, but we understood that it was the sea that called to us.
Following our whims and our map, we stopped often. Looking back, I think that the ancient town of Vasto, perched on a hill high above the glistening Adriatic, had found us, rather than we found it. The insignificant decisions seem to influence our lives more than the monumental ones, like the flapping of a sparrow’s wings that can change the course of the winds. In this case, the course of our lives changed by turning off the highway in order to find a restaurant.
We were driving on the Adriatic Highway, SS16, the two-lane road that passes through the town of Vasto and follows the Abruzzo coast connecting the northern and southern parts of the country. When you are traveling, it is usually the rumblings in your stomach that tell you when to stop. Heeding ours, we parked in a public lot with a magnificent view of Vasto’s long stretch of beach and the open sea beyond. Kersti, wondering if it was okay to leave our car there while we ate and explored the town, struck up a conversation with a parking guard who was on her daily route, and who seemed as interested in the view, and greeting friends, as she was in checking for violations. When she returned, thinking about the reputation that parking guards have for being surly and inflexible, I remarked, “unbelievable! If the parking guards are this hospitable here, how nice are the other people?
After lunch, as I remember it was my favorite, “spaghetti alle vongole,” we wandered through the Old Town’s lanes and alleys, under its arched passages and along its panoramic paths.
When we walked across Vasto’s main square, Piazzi Rosetti, built over a Roman amphitheater, that in the time of the Empire’s greatness could hold 20,000 people, Kersti remarked, “I’m going to love this town. The piazza has a statue of a poet in its center, instead of a soldier or a king.”
That afternoon, we strolled through a city of museums, archeological sites, restaurants, cafes, magnificent churches and interesting architecture, a short walk from one of the best beaches on the Adriatic coast. As fate and chance would have it, it was there that we found our second home.
Often, while searching for one thing, you stumble across another. We went in search of a house. In the end, we found not only a house. We found an alternative lifestyle and new friends who generously shared their rich culture with us.