In November 1943 Lettopalena was wiped out. Kesselring's troops, falling back towards the Gustav line and practising scorched earth, occupied the village, took a house as their headquarters and rounded the people up towards Palena. On 20 November the village, mined from its foundations, was blown up: only the church of San Nicola was left standing, its ceiling caved in, and the access bridge was brought down as well. Those who tried to come back in the following days were caught and sent, with the whole population, to the prison camp of Rocca Pia, more than thirty kilometres away, through the snow: women and children died on the march. Only after 1945 could people return.
The village was not rebuilt where it had been. Today's Lettopalena stands higher up, on the hill of Monteplanizio, built around the abbey of Santa Maria, which the Germans had spared: it had been a powerful abbey, holding the fiefs of the Terra di Lecto — Lettopalena, Palena, Torricella, Taranta, Lama — before declining into a country church. Down below, near the stone bridge over the Aventino, the ruins of the old village and of the old San Nicola remain. In front of the town hall there is a monument in Maiella limestone: a woman in profile with a bunch of roses, and beneath her the two buildings that were the village of before.
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📅 On 5 April and the first Sunday of August
On 5 April Lettopalena, a municipality of 365 inhabitants in the province of Chieti, celebrates its patron Saint Vincent Ferrer; the patronal feast is also held on the first Sunday of August.
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 Lettopalena, but an easy day trip away.
