A small town in the province of Chieti, Rocca San Giovanni is part of the exclusive club of the "most beautiful villages in Italy". It stands on a rocky hill at 155 meters above sea level, between the mouth of the Sangro river and the Feltrino torrent. The first traces written on the village appear on a 1047 diploma, signed by the Emperor Henry III and addressed to the Monastery of San Giovanni in Venere. In the High Middle Ages it was a fief of noble Lombard-Franche families, interested in Benedictine monastic colonization as early as the 8th century. From the eleventh century it became a fortress-shelter of the nearby Benedictine Abbey until the sixteenth century, then passed under the jurisdiction of the congregation of Philip Neri of Rome and at the end of the eighteenth century returned to the Royal State. To see the church of St. Matthew the Apostle, in Romanesque style with three naves, and the nineteenth-century Municipal Palace, of classical inspiration, home to an interesting collection of works of art.

Characteristic the historical center with its course that leads to the splendid panoramic terrace from which it is possible to admire the valley below. The green of the olive groves, of the vineyards and of the orange groves accompanies the gaze until reaching the coast, where the sea breaks on the rocks that delimit creeks and white pebbled beaches. The largest beach is located in the "Foce", which extends between the ancient village of Vallevò and Punta Torre, where stands the homonymous Trabocco. Another suggestive beach, among the most beautiful of the Costa dei Trabocchi, is that of the "Cavalluccio", characterized by the presence of a trabocco and a large rock called the scoglione.

To find out more: www.comuneroccasangiovanni.gov.it