Abruzzo: the unique charm of its ghost villages.

Abandoned villages have the ability to stop time. Not even the man's guilty neglect, or the most violent storm, can change the story they keep.

Abruzzo, in addition to the various villages counted among the most beautiful villages in Italy, also holds some 'ghost' villages.

Here are some of them:

The medieval village of Gessopalena

To act as a backdrop to what remains of a place where life once flowed, the summits of the Maiella and the hills of the Chietina province.

The ghost village of Gessopalena is one of the most fascinating stages of a road trip in Abruzzo and today we want to tell you its story and the emotions it has transmitted to us.

The origins of Gessopalena are ancient and to be traced back to the year one thousand, when a large part of the population, which lives scattered throughout the territory, converges to places less exposed to dangers.

The new settlement develops on the top of a chalky cliff, where houses are built by digging into the rock.

In the choice of the name, the geographical proximity to Palena, a village colonized by the Lombards and well developed in the vicinity of the Aventine river, and the main resource of the village: the chalk.

The extraction and processing of plaster has in fact always been the main activity of Gessopalena and even today it is possible to admire the ancient furnaces.

However, there were those who called the settlement by another name, much more poetic: Preta Lucente. The rock that distinguishes the houses, the staircases and perhaps the walls of the castle of Gessopalena contains crystals that shine in the sun.

Hence the affectionate appellation with which the inhabitants used to call their own village.

The development of the village in the Middle Ages: the importance of the Benedictines

Gessopalena was for a long time under the influence of the Benedictine monks of Montecassino and thanks to this several places of worship arose: towards the end of the Middle Ages there are five.

Of the Church of Sant'Egidio, which is presumed to have dated back to that time, today only the ruins remain, although of great effect.

In this phase of development of the village, artisan shops and oil mills open: the spaces that hosted these activities can still be seen today, visiting the open-air archaeological and museum area of Gessopalena.

The sad fate of Gessopalena during the Second World War

The magnificent position of Gessopalena, on the hills between the Sangro and Aventine rivers, turned out to be a double-edged blade during the Second World War.

In that historical context, the village was located on the border line between the coast and the highlands of the territory of L'Aquila, where the headquarters of the German troops were based.

In October 1943 the Germans arrived in Gessopalena and began looting and abuse, interrupted only for a short time following the explosion of the road that connected Gessopalena with Torricella Peligna.

Subsequently, the Germans returned to the village and, after informing the podestà to have the country cleared, to the cry of “Gessopalena kaput!”, on the night between 4 and 5 December 1943 they blew up a good part of the settlement.

That night few people were still present in the village, some to try to recover the few things he had, who because he didn't want to abandon him. They all died, because of the explosions or crushed by the rubble.

The sad fate of Gessopalena contributed to cementing the group of the Maiella Brigade, a formation of about a hundred partisans led by Domenico and Ettore Troilo.

The Maiella Brigade led the Allies in the liberation of Abruzzo, among the impervious paths of the Chietin mountains, becoming the only partisan formation to be decorated with the gold medal for military valor on the flag.

Similarly, in 2005 the then President of the Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, awarded the Municipality of Gessopalena the Gold Medal for Civil Merit.

What remains of Gessopalena Vecchia: the visit to the ghost village

A symbolic country of the Resistance, the ghost village of Gessopalena has been secured and today houses an open-air museum that can be visited by all for free.

The link with the Maiella Brigade is still consolidated: the village has been chosen as the administrative seat of the current volunteer corps, which promotes events of a cultural historical nature, not to forget what happened in this area of Abruzzo during the Second World War.

The dwellings, shops and buildings of worship damaged by the German mines have not been rebuilt ex-novo, but most of these have been secured and it is possible to admire the various environments, including those dug into the rock, in complete freedom.

You can breathe an atmosphere of other times and, if you are lucky enough to visit the ghost village of Gessopalena in solitude, in the silence that surrounds the walls of the village you will be able to capture the magic of one of the most fascinating places in Abruzzo.

At the point where Gessopalena embraces the peaks of the Maiella, stands the Monument to the Resistance, dedicated to the men and women who, during the Second World War, acted to liberate their land from the Nazi-fascist enemy.

San Pietro della Lenca (AQ), uninhabited village

San Pietro della Ienca is a small village in the province of L'Aquila, very close to the two villages of Assergi and Camarda, along the Strada Provinciale del Vasto. It is lying on the top of a hill at an altitude of over 1100 meters, in front of the majestic peaks of the Gran Sasso, which seems to protect it with its breathtaking grandeur.

The village consists of very few stone dwellings, once ancient mansions of sheds who grazed their cattle on the high-altitude meadows, which surround a beautiful church, also made of stone, now called the "Pope's Church".

It, in fact, often welcomed Pope Wojtyla, who loved to pray in these mountains and, precisely for this reason, was consecrated the official Sanctuary of John Paul II.

The village, moreover, is famous for the presence of another sacred place: the hermitage of San Franco, from which the water that flows from the fountain of San Pietro della Ienca is born, whose source, according to popular tradition, was the miraculous work of San Franco and seems to have the power to heal from skin diseases.

The village of San Pietro della Ienca, which stands around the medieval church of the same name, is the same one that is variously specified as 'della Jenca' or Jenga, Genca or Genga. The Diploma that Emperor Otto gave (in 956 after Christ) from Aveia, where he was visiting, mentions the area adjacent to the district where San Pietro della Ienca stands, which however is not mentioned. In reality, even in the light of other evidence, there are very good reasons to proceed towards the hypothesis of the existence, as early as 1178, of the settlement of San Pietro.