The quiet life ... find beaches without the holiday crowds around Vasto. Photograph: Americo Ricciardi
There are fewer and fewer places left around the European shores of the Mediterranean where you can bathe in safe, clean water by a quiet beach in front of orchards and vineyards. Fewer still where such is the volume of traffic that you can pick up your luggage at an international airport just minutes after you have landed.
Abruzzo, with mountains to the west, and the Adriatic in the east, is still an unspoilt region of Italy. Unpretentious as well as unspoilt is Vasto, about an hour south of the airport at Pescara. The old town overlooks a long sandy beach, a short walk down the hill from the centre (you could catch bus number 4 on the way back) and a clutch of low-rise hotels. A little further up the coast, past the lighthouse at Punta Penna, is another, even quieter, beach, by a nature reserve at Punta Aderci. Here, you can also see trabocchi, curious wooden contraptions used by local fishermen to catch fish - mainly prawns - without getting into the water.
Photograph: Americo RiccardiVasto, at this time of year, is a calm and friendly town, a perfect size, it seems, though its mayor, Luciano La Penna, pointed out that its population of 40,000 rises to 100,000 when Italians from Rome, Naples, and the north, come for the high summer - July and August. Now you can walk around without hassle or bustle visiting the churches, the Palazzo d'Avalos, the town's most imposing building overlooking the sea and seek shade in its attractive Neapolitan-style garden.
Nearby is the cathedral of San Giuseppe. In a corner of the square at the Universal Caffe you can be refreshed by a generous glass of proseccco at a cost of €2 (£1.60), the price, it seems, of all aperos anywhere in the town.
Photograph: Americo RiccardiThe centre is the Piazza Gabriele Rossetti, father of Christina and Dante Gabriel. Gabriele was born in Vasto. His support for Italian nationalism made him a potential target of the ruling Bourbon Kingdom of the two Sicilies and under the protection of thee British navy he left Italy for Malta in 1821 before settling in London. A special attraction in Vasto this year is a Rossetti exhibition at the Palazzo d'Avalos guest curated by Jan Marsh, the historian of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and biographer of Christina. Some 30 paintings from London and the US will be on show between August and November. (Mounting the exhibition of many millions of pounds' worth of paintings, and insuring the works of art, has involved some serious preparation.) Among the permanent attractions is the delightful Teatro Rossetti, a venue for jazz and classical concerts.
"If you don't like fish, don't come to Vasto," a guide from the town's department of culture told me. Indeed, fish and shellfish - clams, octopus, mussels, prawns, squid, sole - and fish soup, are the local delicacies served at lunch, either at Mimi's, for example, or on the beach. But there is other good local produce on the menu. There is nowhere better to buy it than the Saturday covered market where you can choose from mounds of different Pecarino cheeses from Abruzzo's sheep and Ventricina - a salami spiced with paprika.
Vasto's hinterland includes the Museum of the Pig, billed as the world's first swine museum, at Carpineto Sinello. A farming family offers "agriturismo" - organic homegrown food accompanied by fresh, dark, red wine - at Villa Ramignano in the nearby village of Cupello. Beyond are the hill villages, lakes, and restaurants, of Abruzzo's rugged Maiella mountains.
Guardiagrele, with its many narrow streets, is often described as one of Italy's most attractive villages. It is worth a visit just for lunch at the nearby Restaurante Grotta dei Raselli where you are offered a wonderful selection of warm antipasti. We enjoyed a three-course meal there with a glass of wine for €20 (£16). After lunch, we continued to Montenerodomo, at the site of Iuvanum, a Roman town with the remains of a small amphitheatre, its size in keeping, it seemed, with everything else in this area, Vasto included.
Around here, houses are for sale for €37,500, less if you are prepared to spend more time and money doing them up. Vasto's mayor referred to "many undiscovered archaeological sites" in the town. It is also clear that Vasto could be ripe for development, bringing in money albeit but at the cost of its charm. It may well be a question of whether the archaeologists can get there before new buildings get in the way.
Though there are obvious attractions in staying at a hotel by the beach (the Palace, by the railway station, is the most modern but you have to cross quite a busy a road to get to the sea), I stayed at the Hotel San Marco, a friendly - and unpretentious - establishment a few minutes walk from the centre. Among the restaurants are Castello Aragona with a tremendous view over the bay, the well-recommended but slightly formal Hostaria del Pavone downtown - fish is the speciality at both, of course - and Las Islas de Mujeres, specialising in a Mexican dishes but with fish also on the menu.
Getting there
Ryanair flies to Pescara from Stansted, and is included in its £10 deals, but booking today for next month, for example, would cost £90 return inc taxes.
