If you’re considering escaping to Italy not only for art and architecture, food and wine, history and culture – but to progress your knowledge of Italian – look no further than the little known region of Molise. Most people haven’t heard of it, including some Italians, and there’s a joke that claims “Il Molise non esiste…” Not true. It’s a…
On the beautiful Adriatic coastline shared by Molise, Abruzzo and Puglia, lies the “La costa dei Trabucchi’: here large wooden platforms rooted to the rocks jut out into the sea. The arms of the trabucco or trabocco hold a narrow fishing net, il traboccetto. A complicated series of winches is used to lower and raise the net, literally catching the fish…
No visit to Agnone is complete without seeing the ancient Sannite ruins at Pietrabbondante, only a short drive away. We went on a spectacular Sunday evening and had the place to ourselves. The historians of our group were amazed to hear about this tribe, considered to be the original Italians. An Italici tribe, these powerful warriors were an Oscan speaking…
In 1662 Leonardo Di Nucci was a shepherd moving his herds along the tratturi. The wide tracks that weave through Abruzzo and Molise down to the plains of Puglia. The Di Nucci family have been making award winning artisan cheese here in the Apennine hills, in Alto Molise, ever since. Today, the 11th generation of the family use the same…
It so happens that the 2 oldest continuously family-owned firms in the world are Japanese – One constructing shrines and holy buildings since 578, and the other, inn-keeping since 718. And the 3rd oldest continuously family-owned business in the world is in Molise, Italy – in the small town of Agnone where my grandfather’s cousins have been making bells since…
This year the famous winter festival of the ‘Ndocciata was dedicated to San Giovanni Paolo II. This festival originated during Molise’s pre-christian Samnite era and is specific to the town of Agnone. The torches, or ‘ndocce’ were used during tribal shifts that usually took place at night, as s source of light. After the 9th Century, local farmers began to…
