Top of the World
Suspended between the peaks of Gran Sasso and the Tirino valley, a stone miracle takes shape before our eyes: it is Castel del Monte, announced by the mighty bell tower. The duration of memories here is sweeter than elsewhere and materializes, as soon as you enter the village, in those wonderful pieces of folk architecture that are the ancient portals, windows, "vignals" (external stairs), the arches of passage.the visit to the old town can start from Porta San Rocco that once was part of the defensive walls, still visible. At the entrance of the village stands the church of San Rocco, built after the plague of 1656 with a rectangular "sail" facade. in via Duca degli Abruzzi you will find one of the three ancient ovens in which the people of the castle came to bake bread. Along the slope is the Governor's Palace, built between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries on an area that occupied the entire block. The dismemberment of the property today makes it difficult to read: note the structure set on large arches, the beautiful portal of 1559 and the two ornamental mullioned windows. Even the nearby Palazzo Colelli, in Via del Codacchio, is difficult to recognize today the ancient greatness, which survives only in the loggia, in the tower and in the memory of the hundred rooms. Once at Porta di Santa Maria, we stop in the street of the same name to look at the view and, below, the church of the Madonna delle Grazie, the only surviving church, along with that of San Donato, of the many churches that stood outside the walls.
