Minturno - Take those Side-roads!

Minturno Hill Town

T|he motorways snake their way through the countryside of southern Italy allowing fast passage from one city to the next. But there is more to see than the motorways will ever reveal and a diversion off the motorway to an uncertain destination - sometimes a dot on the map,sometimes an outline on a hillside, - is almost always time well spent.






































Minturno is just such  an undefined hillside diversion - an outline offering who knows what. Time to spare is your friend. Take those side-roads if you can.


The town of Minturno is a survivor of the ravages of war. Historic ruins part destroyed cling on to life and are re-inhabited and resurrected. Residents remain, bringing back their homes from the brink of decimation. In Minturno you will see this remarkable ability to take what remains and turn desolation into new life. From partially destroyed city walls new homes emerge, built into and inhabiting the ruins and then emerging like a butterfly from its chrysalis out of the ruins they have been handed.

 This is truly the spirit of determined survival. Splashes of colour breaking out through grey stone surrounds are identifying markers where new life has taken hold.



Minturno is essentially a dual-town,  - partly low lying on the coast and partly high up on a rugged hillside. Over the centuries it has fought a bitter war and been defeated at least three times, and it is now the hillside town of Minturno that fights on, with the lower town all but overridden except in name, by its surrounding neighbours and their modern beach villas.



















With a sweeping view of the countryside and the coast below, the town of Minturno is a magnificent spot. Quintessential hill-town as it is with its tall houses, its narrow lanes and its protective walls, it is only in its reconstruction that it keeps alive all that it has gone through. With its past in every wall, in every edifice, in every street, it is a town of living history.

Also Pip McCurdy's New Zealand posts:

On Blogspot, Pip McCurdy on the Road

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