Petacciato

Petacciato standson the last ridge before the Adriatic, with the Tremiti islands offshore and the Maiella visible to the north and the Gargano to the south on clear days. The centro storico keeps its medieval shape around the Chiesa di Santa Maria, built in tuff and sandstone between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, originally dedicated to San Rocco and still holding three naves with three altars. The Marina di Petacciato, a few kilometers below the village, runs a long sand beach lined with pine, with low dunes and shallow water that draws Italian families in July and August. The hills above produce the olive oil that earned the Città dell'Olio designation. Petacciato was one of the lower-Molise villages Serafino Razzi listed in his sixteenth-century chronicle of Slav-founded communities, though the visible record today is Italian Romanesque and twentieth-century coastal.