A town as sweet as honey, where art and nature collide.
Can you think of anywhere in the world where bees and mosaics are a marriage made in heaven?
Here is a tale of a day out halfway between the Majella mountains and the Trabocchi Coast in Abruzzo where honey and art are celebrated every day. The small town of Tornareccio in the province of Chieti is world renowned for its apiaries and has been transformed into an open-air museum full of contemporary mosaics thanks to its philanthropist Alfredo Paglione, born in this town. Each year it holds a fabulous festival celebrating honey and the bees called “Regina di Miele”. The cobbled streets are filled with stalls celebrating bees, and the stallholders sell honey, cheese, saffron, jewellery, beauty creams, and many other gorgeous honey-based products.
One warm day in September a lovely group and I spent a morning exploring this pretty little town. As we arrived, the sun was shining brightly and the first thing we saw on the wall of a house was a beautiful mosaic glittering golden in the sunshine. It was the first of around 100 scattered around the town on the fronts of houses, walls, and churches. With our lovely guide, we learned of the “A Mosaic for Tornareccio” project, where many great artists take part in an annual competition to enter a piece of art that is then sent to master artists in Ravenna to be completed as a mosaic. The townsfolk can apply to have a piece of this art history installed on their house, and each year a different lucky façade is chosen. We listened intently as the themes were explained, each with their own story to tell. The mosaics depict bees and the Queen with her honey, life stories, folklore, and religion, and they are all breathtaking with their intricate designs and small pieces of perfectly placed mosaic. Every nook and cranny of this pretty town has a mosaic on show; it truly is an open-air museum of beauty.
The town’s significant beekeeping history and world-renowned honey meant the morning wouldn’t have been complete without a visit to a local producer and a tasting of their sweet golden nectar. With Giovanna, the owner, we learned about honey production from flower to jar, and of the wonderful waggle dance the bees perform in a figure of eight to share information about the direction and distance to patches of flowers, water sources, and new nest locations. Afterwards we tasted many delicious flavours including millefiori, acacia, orange blossom, and eucalyptus, as well as more unusual ones such as sulla, coriander, and the very unique melata di bosco. This honey is not derived from flowers, but from secretions of an insect found on woodland vegetation. The bee recognises this sugary secretion and transforms it into a substance rich in enzymes. It was an unusual flavour — the darkest of dark browns — and not everyone’s cup of tea, but fascinating to learn about another jaw-dropping skill of these amazing creatures.
To complete the morning, we enjoyed a delicious honey aperitivo in the gardens: bruschetta with prosciutto, peach and honey, a zingy chilli honey drizzled on top of delicious local cheese, and sweet pizzelle, an Abruzzo waffle oozing in honey and chocolate.
Bees and art make the world go round; without them it would struggle to survive. It would be a place without love, passion, joy — and food production would be difficult. So let’s celebrate this piece of heaven on earth, and I suggest you come for a visit to see it for yourselves.
