We are at the heart of the archaeological excavations that Giose helped make accessible by taking care of their maintenance: this young man from Abruzzo, who took part in Fondazione Edoardo Garrone’s ReStartApp ‘on-campus’ course in 2015 with his project to promote paragliding in central Italy, has indeed a degree in Conservation of Cultural Heritage and has also worked as a freelance archaeologist. This is why, to tell about his love story with free flight, he proposes we meet in Alba Fucens. “This is where my mother was born, and I spent part of my childhood and adolescence, in my maternal grandparents’ house in Albe, the town that developed as a medieval village around the ancient Roman town hall”, he explains. Giose was born in 1981 in Avezzano (L’Aquila): located three hundred metres lower, Avezzano is the most important town on the Fúcino plain, which opens up before our eyes as we stand in the beautifully-preserved amphitheatre of Alba Fucens. This is also the area that was forever changed by the Marsica earthquakethat in January 1915 killed thirty thousand people and destroyed the castle of Albe. This is a memory that lives on among the local community and in the words of those who were born here. Until the 19th century, this area was occupied by a lake, subsequently drained and transformed into a cultivated plain

– the plain that needs to be entirely crossed to reach Gioia dei Marsi (L’Aquila), at the outskirts of the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park (Parco nazionale d’Abruzzo, Lazio e Molise). As we drive along the Ss83 Marsicana state road, after kilometres of hairpin bends we take a dirt road until we reach a slightly sloping plateau in the mountains. From up here, the view stretches across the land as far as Avezzano, Velino and the nearby Mount Magnola. Giose continues telling his story, speaking calmly even as he assembles the paraglider and prepares for the jump the person who is going to fly with him: the outlet for his passion for flying is indeed Controvento, an amateur sports association he set up in 2016 to let everyone try flying using two-seater paragliders. “I no longer fly on my own; I get bored. The great thing is that, oftentimes, the people that try paragliding have never experienced such a thrill. I love briefing them, getting them ready, and then ‘jumping’ with them”. The association’s website mentions the ‘baptism of flight’, “a very intense moment, characterised by an uncontrollable urge for freedom and the natural fear of an as-yet-unknown feeling. Flying a paraglider is like sailing offshore. The sail is our boat and the air currents are the waves we surf in the wind”.