The Giro d'Italia introduced the Pearl of the Gargano, which is making a resurgent comeback with the first scents of mimosa in anticipation of Spring. All the common points of the Mediterranean, which go up the Ionian and Adriatic seas to the beaches of Vieste, Manaccora, Zaiana, San Nicola and ... Peschici, precisely. And further on you can glimpse the Tremiti Islands where "Memena” he brought the stuffed aubergines to his Lucio.
Manoel Island, Gzira, Malta, Wednesday 4 March 2026.
The scent of mimosa is everywhere. Spring is just around the corner.
The usual tour with Hugo, who is always thirsty for novelty and this time proves more intrigued than ever by the multi-colored animals of the cat colony that embellishes a corner that needs revitalization.
By mid-morning, Pakistanis are already heading to their daily chores. Their timeless, homeless cricket matches will perhaps resume over the weekend, when Manoel has once again been besieged by sports enthusiasts—from runners to walkers—and those eager to get some exercise to stay in shape.
Walking towards the Fort, the Marina is on the right and Marsamxmett Harbour is before us and Valletta stands majestic as ever.
Once you reach the Fort, turn left and from there the Sliema peninsula leads your gaze to peer out over the Mediterranean Sea beyond Fort Tigné.
… "Come è profondo il mare" (How Deep the Sea), one might hum softly so as not to undermine that masterpiece by Lucio Dalla, which brings to mind 100 others and more: it was produced at Stone Castle Studios in Carimate, a stone's throw from Lentate sul Seveso and Cantù, where I have deep roots. Eight tracks produced by the award-winning Colombini & Cremonini company.
Memories, even if they arrive softly, eventually become overwhelming, and an ordinary Wednesday becomes a day to remember, as the Ionian and Adriatic Seas unfold before our eyes, reaching Peschici, the Pearl of the Gargano, which, along with the Tremiti Islands and Vieste, remains a cornerstone of Dalla's love for Puglia.
And Wednesday, March 4, 2026 brings us back – obviously – to March 4, 1943, the date of Lucio Dalla's birth in Bologna.
The eclectic singer-songwriter passed away who knows where on March 1, 2012, taking flight from Montreux, Switzerland. His body, of course, is gone. His soul is still here, a bit everywhere, and for our part, it's mostly in Peschici, in the province of Foggia, although we once indulged in the desire to see where he is buried, at the Certosa di Bologna. There, he has rested since October 23, 2013, in a tomb bearing the silhouette of the cover of "DallAmericaCaruso," a photograph taken by Luigi Ghirri on the Tremiti Islands. That tomb, if you wish, can be reached after exhausting the sites of other famous Bolognese people like Patrizio Roversi, Ottorino Respighi, and—most importantly—Giosuè Carducci. But it's the parting phrase from "Cara," clearly written on the tombstone, that remains etched in the memory: "Goodnight, my soul, I'm turning off the light now, and so be it." Stefano Contaroni's vision found in Antonello Paladino, a sculptor and much more, the interpreter of widely shared wishes.
Dalla's Bologna is a story that never ends.
Dalla's Peschici is a very personal fragment of the Bolognese artist's passages in Capitanata.
And every March 4th, that fragment written and set to music in 1971 with the Nuova Equipe 84 comes to fruition because, let's be honest, it's an ever-present part of a story that the "Pearl" unravels in importance after the onslaught of locusts (neutralized by the man who later became Saint Elias, patron saint of that place, a ray of sunshine on the Gargano) and after...the four stages of the Giro d'Italia staged in a village of just 4.000 residents. All records. How many other places so tiny and so remote from the capitals of great cycling can boast four finishes in Italy's most beloved race?
Well, a common thread connects Carimate Castle to Fort Manoel and Fort Tigné, all the way to Peschici Castle, where, as a then-unknown artist, Lucio Dalla would occasionally drop by during his stays in Capitanata, making fun of passersby (mostly tourists, as the locals knew the little man, who had already lost his hair as a boy), asking them for alms as they strolled through the historic center, which is sometimes paved with marble!
March 4, 1943 was born as Baby JesusTo get to the Sanremo Festival, the author's birth date was adopted, having worked hard to write the lyrics in collaboration with Paola Pallottino. And, Paola... for Paola, look at the coincidence: the song was first performed during the Ferragosto del Tirreno holiday in... Paola, in the province of Cosenza, where her mother, the single mother, had worked.
Everything, however, had blossomed in Peschici, on another sea. The Adriatic, precisely. This is attested by many people, not least Rossella, who made the Orchidea Hotel great and who learned the secrets of the trade from her mother Filomena, whose last name was Salcuni and who ran the guesthouse next to the Trattoria "Pescatrice."
Lucio Dalla began frequenting Peschici and Filomena in 1966: he was 23 years old. He had been an orphan since the age of 7. And he was in search of…an author, like many others in those years who practiced that profession. His new sea was not the Upper Adriatic, which as the crow flies is about a hundred kilometers from his native Bologna, traveling east along the Via Emilia. His chosen sea was the Lower Adriatic, which bathes the bays of Peschici, Procinisco, San Nicola, Zaiana, Manaccora, Calalunga, and so on, all the way to the "aristocratic" Vieste. It is the same sea that, further west, embraces the Tremiti Islands, Lucio's adopted home until the public administration turned its back on him.
To recap... "Memena" Filomena was Raffaella's mother, and she was also known locally for her exaggerated breasts, so exaggerated that the kids would whistle at her every passerby. And Raffaella is the wife of Pepito, a former cruise ship expert and then a full-time fisherman, even on the pedal boats "moored" on the Peschici beach, pushed out to sea at night to free the fish caught in the nets they had pulled in the night before sleeping a few hours in the kiosk overlooking the water.
At dawn, at the right times, usually in September, Pepito heads out by boat to Manaccora Bay and wakes my friends Loreta and Domenico by slamming octopuses against the sides of the vessel until they die. Or he fishes for Sbarroni, which are—to put it in Maltese terms—a sort of poor man's Lampuki.
Leaving Pepito to his fate, with that white beard reaching his lower belly, we can turn our gaze to "Memena," who often filled her bag with delicacies and local specialties cooked at "La Pescatrrice" to bring to her protégé Lucio on the Tremiti Islands, with stuffed aubergines on top. And how Lucio and his friend Ron loved that dish...
The Giro d'Italia introduced us to Peschici, "where the sea sparkles," and made us fall in love with it every time we descend Monte Pucci, where the white skyline stands out against the usually blue sky. And Peschici introduced us to the locals' love for Dalla, whom we can see from Manoel Island and who, every beginning of March, is remembered more and more, because, as we know, March 4, 1943, isn't just a birth date. It's the beginning of a man's genius.
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