Fara San Martino stands at the mouth of the Santo Spirito valley, where the gorges come down from the Maiella, and it is one of the world capitals of pasta: De Cecco has been making it here since 1886, and after it came the Cocco pasta works, Delverde, Bioalimenta. Behind the houses the gorge opens, and in the gorge, around the year nine hundred, Benedictine monks founded the abbey of San Martino in Valle. For centuries the place was in the hands of the abbots; then the abbey declined, was suppressed and united to the Vatican chapter, and the village became a fief — the Valignani of Chieti sold it in 1584 for four thousand ducats.
On the eighth of September 1818 a flood covered the abbey with debris and the abbey was abandoned. The first excavations to pull it out are of 1891, but only with those of 2006 were the remains brought entirely back to light: the foundations, the columns, the traces of a hermitage joined to the mountain, and a doorway of mountain stone, perfectly preserved, that led to the altar. In summer concerts are held there. The village itself had already been rebuilt once: the Maiella earthquake of 1706 left it unusable and the medieval plan was altered to build new houses. In the winter of 1943 the Germans held it during the retreat to the Gustav line: the people were forced out into the mountains and the villages nearby, and many houses and factories were mined.
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📅 Every year, from 23 to 25 August
From 23 to 25 August Fara San Martino, a municipality of 1,524 inhabitants in the province of Chieti, celebrates the patronal feasts of Sant'Emidio, Sant'Antonio and San Rocco.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Fara San Martino, but an easy day trip away.
