Searching for the Perfect Italian Town

By Tom Pool

While in chiropractic school, 30-some years ago, I heard about a company in Italy that was conducting a long-term chiropractic research project in conjunction with the Italian government. A few years later, feeling less than happy with our choice of places to settle and work, I managed to talk my wife and young son into moving abroad.

The clincher in my argument against just saving our money and vacationing in Europe was, “The world looks different out of your bedroom window than it does out of a tour bus window.” What followed was three years in a suburb of Milan, working like crazy and falling in love with the Italian culture, language and general way of life.

It turned out to be a great education for our son, as well, as he learned first-hand that other people have ways of doing things that are just as valid, and often more practical, than the American way.

We returned to the States when it was time for Jason to attend high school, but have harbored a deep desire to return to the land of “la dolce vita”.

Now that we are retired, and able to afford to travel and live where we wish, we are revisiting to again become expatriates.

We have read and followed (and drooled over) IL's postcards and the International Living Magazine for several years, and used their advice to look to the south of Italy. We feel we will have a better chance of avoiding winter there. We can afford better more home, travel, and lifestyle options there, too.

Following IL’s recommendations, we explored parts of the province of Abruzzo with our son and daughter-in-law. One of our objectives was to determine just how much time had allowed us to romanticize our time in Italy.

Some of the villages we examined were picture-book gorgeous, but not places we would wish to live. Having some experience at expat living, we know that too small a town invites us to forever be “the American outsiders,” and forever be a chief topic of conversation, as in, “Did you hear what ‘the Americans’ did this week?”

We are not keen on a burgeoning metropolis, either, having lived through the pollution, noise and all the negative aspects of anonymity of Milan.

One town which has captured our attention and our imaginations is Lanciano, a small city of about 35,000 just inland from Pescara. It is big enough to lose ourselves in—and have its own shopping and other essential services—and small enough to maintain a unique civic personality. It is close to the sea, but not so near as to fill with tourists (and tourist prices) during the high season. It is close enough to the big city—Pescara—to have big city conveniences near at hand, yet has its own theater and other cultural activities.

On our first entry to Lanciano, we stopped at a (coffee) bar to get caffeinated and to get some sense of the “lay of the land”. It happened that the bar we chose was owned by a recent émigré from Moscow who was incredibly proud of her homeland (she insisted that we sample several varieties of her favorite vodkas, normally not a big issue for me, but at 9.30 a.m., something of a new adventure) and equally pleased to be in her new location.

Everyone we spoke with in Lanciano was completely in love with the town, extolling its lack of crime, its long and colorful history, its friendliness…

One thing we learned early on from living outside the land of our births is to ask the locals for recommendations for dining. (The worst meal we had in our previous life in Italy came from a suggestion in a Frommer’s guidebook. The notoriety had overwhelmed the proprietors and caused a precipitous decline in both quality and service.)

The bank teller where we stopped to exchange money recommended the Taverna ai Vecchi Sapori, the “Tavern of the Old Flavors”, for lunch.

The restaurant was several steps below ground level (thus “taverna”) and rustically beautiful. The menu was bewildering, not because we couldn’t read it, but because we couldn’t choose. Jason asked the waitress if we could sample everything. Her eyes lit up, she smiled broadly and disappeared into the kitchen.

For the next two hours we felt like guest judges on an episode of “Top Chef” as our server brought wave after wave of delicious dishes, including bites of every dessert on the menu. A couple of carafes of house red somehow emptied themselves, as well. (Another tip we learned quickly in Italy—always order house wine. It’s what the cooks and owners drink with the food they prepare.)

On leaving, Jason inquired about the possibility of purchasing a couple bottles of the house wine. The waitress looked stricken. “I’m sorry. We make the wine ourselves and it comes in 35-liter demijohns.” She paused, then brightened, “But let me see what we can do,” and disappeared into the back again. She returned with two mineral water bottles filled with wine.

A week later, we found ourselves again in Lanciano and hungry. We turned to Taverna ai Vecchi Sapori to find the door closed. We were too early, and real Italian chefs won’t open until the sauces are done.

But our waitress heard us rattling the door and hastened to admit us, “We’ll be ready in about 20 minutes if you want to wait.” We headed for a table near the back, where we wouldn’t be in the way. She stopped us and herded us the other way with a smile, “No, this is your table here, where you ate last week.”