The Walls Tell Tales of Childhood Games

The village of murals, at the foot of the Gran Sasso

In Azzinano, a small hamlet in the municipality of Tossicia, in the province of Teramo, the walls know how to tell stories. Every summer, during the last week of July, the The Walls Tell Tales of Childhood Games festival transforms the facades of the Abruzzo village into a vast open-air museum. Naïve painters from every corner of Italy get to work in the alleys, depicting scenes of rural life and, above all, the childhood games of the past: sack races, hoop rolling, hopscotch, and rag dolls—the games played in the streets before the age of screens.

A tradition born in 2001

The event was born in 2001 from the idea of reviving a village marked by depopulation and made even more fragile by the earthquakes that struck the Teramo hinterland. The first murals were created as a tribute to Annunziata Scipione (1928-2018), a naïve painter originally from Azzinano whose simple and poetic canvases inspired the entire project. Since then, edition after edition, the village has grown to feature approximately 57 murals today, becoming a destination recognized by the Abruzzo Region for its artistic and cultural value.

Art, memory, and community

During the festival week, artists paint live along the village streets under the eyes of visitors, curious onlookers, families, and school groups arriving from all over Italy to see the works come to life. The painting sessions are accompanied by meetings, reflections on the future of small villages, and musical evenings, in a festive atmosphere that unites the entire Azzinano community. The Pro Loco of Azzinano, which organizes the event with the patronage of the Municipality of Tossicia and the Abruzzo Region, has made this festival the heart of the village's summer.

More than just a simple festival, The Walls Tell Tales is a project of public art and territorial redemption: each mural is a piece of collective memory that restores dignity and beauty to a village in the Abruzzo interior, inviting passersby to slow down and rediscover the joy of simple games from the past.