Valle Piola

Valle Piola (Vallis Podioli in Latin) is an uninhabited village in the comune of Torricella Sicura (province of Teramo), in the heart of the Monti della Laga.

The village has been abandoned since 1977, when the last family moved away.

It lies in the "Tra due Regni" (Between Two Kingdoms) district of the National Park and is made up of nine buildings plus the church and a shepherds' farmhouse.

The village is at about 1,017 metres on the north-east side of Monte Farina, in a natural amphitheatre where the Rio Valle, a tributary of the Vezzola, rises. It is reached by a dirt road that becomes paved inside the village (Via della Fauna) and then continues as a mule track.

It still has the characteristic gafio, a wooden balcony of Lombard origin.

The village is a group of houses with different owners. In the past it belonged entirely to the Menghini family, a wealthy family, as shown by the gun slits for fending off brigands, the large old fireplaces in some rooms and the big halls. Other buildings have small rooms used as bedrooms.

There are three churches: San Nicola in the centre of Valle Piola, one at Case Menghini and one in the cemetery.

Around the late 1950s the village began to empty, as people emigrated to the cities or abroad in search of a better life. In the 1970s the few remaining inhabitants, often elderly, could no longer live alone in such isolation and had to leave, and the village became completely uninhabited.

Text: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0 · translated from Italian