In the hills just above 400 meters above sea level, the sun casts the silhouette of a yellow brick church on the ground, there is the Gran Sasso behind and the sea in front. It could be any of the many towns or villages of the middle Abruzzo region, but in this case the jewel is called Penne.
In the valley is Penne Lake surrounded by the different shades of green and yellow that render a rich color variety of crops in the surrounding fields. The lake is an artificial reservoir created by damming the Tavo River in the second half of the 1960s, and since 1987 the Lake Penne Controlled Regional Nature Reserve has been established, covering 150 hectares. The Reserve is an important stopover and breeding place for resident, passage and breeding birds such as the hawfinch, blackbird,red-backed shrike, muzzleloader, bunting, egret, woodcock, grus grus, black and white stork, spoonbill, glossy ibis, goldfinch but the symbol of the Reserve is another bird, the Nitticora, which has been nesting in the wetlands of the protected area for several years.
INFO and CONTACTS: https://www.riservalagodipenne.com/
Rising up a gentle slope, Penne shows the peculiarity of the historic center “divided” on two summits: Colle Sacro and Colle Castello. Here are well distributed the Cathedral of St. Maximus and St. Mary of the Angels, the complex of St. John the Baptist, the Church of St. Augustine, the Church of Santa Croce and the parish complex of St. Dominic. Also noteworthy are the towers, gates, fountains, and especially the civil architecture of the aristocratic palaces facing the Corso dei Vestini such as Palazzo Margarita d’Austria, Palazzo De Cesaris, Palazzo Scorpione, and Palazzo Aliprandi.
The presence of man in the area dates back to the Neolithic, but Penne’s historical feather in its cap lies in having been “Pinna,” the capital of the Italic people of the Vestini, who obtained recognition as a municipality and the right of citizenship from Rome. More than two thousand years later, in its dialect Penne is “Pònne“, and to clarify the belonging and pride of being its citizens, the people of Penne end the sentence with a nice“…la capitale de lu mònne,” the capital of the world.
PENNE (province of Pescara): can be reached from Rome via theA24 freeway to the Torano directional junction, then theA25 freeway by exiting at the Chieti-Pescara tollbooth and then continuing on State Road 81 “Piceno Aprutina” in the direction of Cepagatti-Penne.
