In Abruzzo all shopping times are organised round the afternoon siesta. Shops open early - 8 - 8.30 am - and close from 1 - 4pm. They open again at 4 and close at 8pm. Not all shops stick exactly to these hours, but all except supermarkets close for a large part of the afternoon.
Restaurants have fairly short opening times. Generally you need to be ready to eat between 1-2 pm in the afternoon or 8-9pm in the evening to be sure of being served. Pubs carry on serving a bit later.
Sample opening hours:
Supermarkets, including both supermarkets in Penne, accept credit cards (including switch). Smaller shops mostly accept cards too, but not all restaurants in Penne do. For cash, there is a small group of banks with cash machines by the main road just off the main square, Luca da Penne.
There are small shops - grocers, greengrocers, clothes, chemists, etc - all along the street that runs through the centre of the old town. There is a small supermarket (Tigre) by the banks and the post office, on the main road just off the main square, Luca da Penne. These are all in easy walking distance of the house. There is also larger supermarkets (Sisa and Aldi) outside the walls. These are down the hill on the main road leading from Penne back towards the airport, right behind the large modern swimming pool. Access to them is only practical by car. As of 2009, there is also a largeish Conad supermarket at the bottom of the multi-story car park. Although it's quite close, it's such a climb this one is probably only practical by car too.
Although you can buy anything practically anything you need in Penne itself, for modern italian design and fashion Pescara is the place to go. Most towns have local craft specialities; one of Penne's is wrought iron, which is not much practical use for tourists unless you are building a house. Another is textiles - Penne's tailoring and dressmaking skills have been absorbed by the Brioni fashion house, one of Penne's main employers, which has no direct outlet in Penne. You will see some renaissance-style pottery in the shops in Penne - this comes from Castelli, a few kilometres away, which has a flourishing tradition of pottery workshops.
Saturday morning is market day in Penne: the market fills the whole of the main street, the main square, and the top floor of the car park outside the walls. It's a practical, rather than a tourist market, with clothes, material, and food.
There are many restaurants in Penne. Like everywhere else in Italy, meals have two main courses - 'primo piatto' and 'secondo piatto'. The first course is most likely to be some kind of pasta: maccheroni alla chitarra are made from sheets of pasta with a cutter that looks like guitar strings; the result looks like square spaghetti. Or you could try a bean soup (zuppa di fagioli), made with pasta, beans and pork. The first course can be big enough for a whole meal, and restaurants do not think it is strange if you ask for 'just a first course', or 'just a second course'.
The second course is meat (you can find fish in Penne, but it's not a local speciality). The big local ingredient is pork (domestic or wild boar), but restaurants will have lamb, chicken, veal etc as well. Depending on the restaurant, if you want vegetables (contorni) or potatoes with the second course you may have to ask for them separately.
If you want wine with your meal, you can ask for a bottle, but the easiest way to do it is ask for a quarter (un quarto di vino) or a half (mezzo) litre jug. This gets you the house wine, which will be local and good. The local red wine is Montepulciano, and the local white wine is Trebbiano. Since these are produced everywhere in the region they may vary quite a bit from place to place and make to make, but they are all good.
If you're shopping for food instead of eating out, home-made pork sausages (the dark ones are boars' liver) can be found everywhere. Porchetta is a pork joint (or whole pig) cooked in herbs and sold hot in slices in fairs and from butchers at special times. There are many local cheeses to try: some are cow's cheese, but the ones the locals appreciate most are sheep or goat's cheese.
As well as the full-on restaurants there are also the Pizzeria/Pubs (Gianpy's and Don Chisciotte are just a few minutes walk for the house; don't be put off by the forbidding exterior of Don Chisciotte's, there's a very welcoming atmosphere inside.)
And finally, all along the park walk just outside the big San Francesco gate there are excellent ice-cream parlours.