Casa Giardini d’Avalos in the Old Town
Vasto is a town on the Abruzzo coast, with a three-thousand-year history. It is bordered by the sea on one side and shielded by the high peaks of the Apennine Mountains on the other.
Our house, Casa Giardini, “The House in the Gardens” bordering the park of the Palazzo D’Avalos in Vasto's “Centro Storico,” the medieval old town, is surrounded by a twisted warren of narrow alleys, arches, and ancient passages. If you stretch out your arms when you walk through the stone paved lanes, you can touch the walls of the buildings on both sides, some of which are built on the reticulated stone foundations where Roman houses once stood, and over aqueducts and tunnels that also date back 2000 years. As you walk past the archeological remains of marble pillars from an ancient temple and the intricate mosaics of the well-preserved baths on the Via Adriatica, you might hear the echoes of the footsteps and whispers of those who have gone there before you. If you let your imagination recreate the past, you might feel the shapes and shadows of thousands of years of history.
In the mornings, I wake up to the clang of church bells and the seductive aroma of espresso coming from the kitchen, and the smell of salt air drifting through my open windows. In the evenings, I watch the acrobatics of the swallows flying over the Giardini D’Avalos, nimbly darting, and swooping in the half-light. When I look out from my window over the bay at night, I see the lights from the fishing boats floating in the darkness, like a band of pearls that is indistinguishable from the stars.