Termoli Culture

Termoli is a working port that happens to be pretty, and the two facts sit side by side without much friction.

The fleet

Fishing is still real here. The boats go out from the port, the catch is landed and sold in the town, and a good part of the borgo's population is connected to it by family if not by trade.

Brodetto

The local fish soup is made with whatever the boats brought in, cooked in a terracotta pot with tomato and a green pepper, and served with bread rather than pasta. Every family claims a different version and every restaurant claims the right one.

The trabucchi

The timber platforms on the rocks, with their long cantilevered arms and nets, are a shared inheritance of this whole stretch of Adriatic coast. They were built by families who had fishing rights on a particular rock, and several are still worked.

Two seasons

The town has a summer identity and a winter one and they barely overlap, and the switch takes about a fortnight in September.

In August it is a full Adriatic resort; from October it is a quiet provincial town with a fishing port, and locals will tell you which they prefer.

The dialect

Termolese is an Adriatic dialect closer to the coastal speech of Abruzzo and the Gargano than to the mountain dialects an hour inland, which tells you which way the town has always faced.

The Tremiti connection

Termoli is the mainland end of the islands, and a good part of the town's summer economy is other people passing through it.