Rocca San Giovanni

Rocca San Giovanni stands on a 155-meter rocky hill above the Adriatic between the mouths of the Sangro and Feltrino rivers, on the stretch of Chieti coast now marketed as the Costa dei Trabocchi. The village was founded around 1060 by Oderisius I, abbot of the nearby Abbey of San Giovanni in Venere, who feared Norman advances on Chieti and built a fortified settlement as a defensive outpost for his monastery. The abbey itself, a Romanesque complex three kilometers down the slope, is one of the most important religious buildings in Abruzzo.

Below the abbey, the Cavalluccio beach holds a working trabocco, the timber fishing platform that gives the coast its name, alongside a sea stack called the Scoglione. The village above is small, the centro storico still bounded by medieval walls. The Via Verde della Costa dei Trabocchi, a 42-kilometer cycle path on the former Adriatic railway line, passes below.