Trulli

We toured the small towns in the area of the masseria, Alberobello, Martina Franca, Cisternino, Ostuni. It's a beautiful area of rolling hills, olive groves, vineyards and gardens. The trulli are everywhere. Lonely Planet described them as Disney like dwellings that look gnomes should live in them. I agree. Alberobello is the main area for trulli and it has a tourist tackiness that is NOT appealing but the trulli are interesting and the towns are attractive.

And of course we have eaten very well! But we have found out that in Puglia, gelato IS NOT made, sold or eaten in the winter. I shall NOT be returning this late in the year again! We're sorry to see our trip coming to a close but we have had a great time and really enjoyed the locations we chose to visit.

Locorotondo

Nov 6

We bade Mr. Personality and the 13 cats a sad good bye and went to the small town of Locorotondo in mid Puglia in the "trulli" district. Another find on the internet with the same totally incoherent directions that again confused both us and Ms. GPS who by now is lovingly referred to as "the bitch" because she has shown a penchant for taking us down secondary (at best) roads and when she gets confused starts rapidly telling us conflicting commands one after the other. A phone call and a couple of stops for directions later we arrived at Masseria Aprile. This is a place I could stay FOREVER! It is BEAUTIFUL, the family who owns and runs it are incredibly welcoming and personable. It is actually quite close to Locorotondo and has a view of this beautiful town that sits on a hill. Our room is in a restored "trulli" (the pointy roofed, traditional stone dwellings of this area.) The Masseria (a farm) is almost 300 years old and has been in the same family for the whole time. Restoration was begun an 1992 and completed just a few years ago. The family produces wine and olive oil, makes cheese and has a gorgeous garden. The wife makes all kinds of marmalades which she sells to guests and also makes yummy baked goods for breakfast. She will conduct cooking classes with a little advance notice and then the students eat their production. Unfortunately, we didn't know about this until we arrived so couldn't take advantage of it. There is an elderly donkey that has free rein and also a 4 mo old stallion that is magnificent. He's a large breed particular to the area and will be used for pulling a carriage when he is grown. Dick suggested a caption for the donkey pic, "which one is the ass in this picture?"

The "padrone", Antonio is very proud of the place. He's the winemaker and took us on a tour of everything including his cantina and also had us taste some walnut liqueur and also vin cotto, a liqueur like product made from the grape must. it's a bit like balsamic vinegar and is used in much the same way.

This was a great last stop before beginning our trek home.

Moving on to Gioia del Colle

Nov 4

Moving day.....left our nice little place in Lecce and moved toward the north and west so that we could visit the city of Matera in Basilicata. We (as in I) found a place to stay online. It was lovely, not locateable by GPS from the online address and directions (as per usual) and after lots of false tries and asking lots of questions, I called the place and BEGGED in my best pidgin Italian for someone to come get us. Turns out that instead of 1 km from the highway, it was more like 5 km from the highway down a couple narrow country roads and past an Italian airbase.

It was actually a very nice place with kind of an Alfred Hitchcock feel to it. We were the only guests there and the only person working there was a kid about 20 who spoke no English and had NO personality in ANY language. Our room was nice and up one of the steepest marble staircases I have seen. One of the more intersting features of the place was the 13 cats that resided there. I tried diligently to get a photo with them all but they were simply not willing to cooperate. This was the best I could do...Mr. Personality had thrown out the crumbs from our breakfast along with the leftover milk from my latte and the cats attacked the food.

We drove to Matera, an ancient city carved into the limestone of the area. It has a history of terrible impoverishment and very high mortality rates due to malaria until the late 1950's when malaria was wiped out with DDT and the Italian government made all the residents of the cavelike dwellings move into more suitable housing. There is a "sassi" (cave home) that has been recreated in one of the original dwellings for tourists to see. Here's a photo of it and one of the deserted, empty caves.

The city of Matera is really very striking....all carved into the stone and on the top of a steep ravine. The old part of the city where the people were moved to apartments is deserted except for a few shops and kiosks. There is a newer part that has very nice homes and apartments, all made of the limestone of the area. As you can see in the photos, there are a lot of elevation changes so we earned our pasta for the day, which we enjoyed at our lunch stop.

Last day in Salento

Salento is the bottom part of the "heel" of Italy. It's a very popular beach vacation spot for both Italians and people from all over Europe but the Ionion coast looks TOTALLY deserted now and the Adriatic coast is only slightly more inhabited. Today we we to the city of Otranto and did some driving along the Adriatic coast. This side of the heel is very rocky, some hills and some very dramatic vistas with not too many sandy swimming beaches. The Ionion coast is almost all sandy beaches and has ZILLIONS of vacation apartments and home, all totally boarded up for the winter. The picture is of the Adriatic coast that we saw today.

The drive over to the coast (only about 20 miles) revealed just how stormy it was last night. We had a torrential rain accompanied by thunder and lightening and the rain went on for hours and hours. Our landlady said the "cantina" (I think she's talking about the basement) was completely flooded and they are having to pump the water out. Many of the olive groves we passed were quite submerged and there were lots of big puddles. The day began as bright, sunny and humid and ended with some more showers but nothing like last night.

We visited the city of Otranto where we saw a castle (it appears that every town has one) that is being used to display some local art. It adds to the interest of the visit significantly. The castles that we have seen are quite different from those we have seen in England and France. They are possibly older for one thing but the influence is from cultures other than French and English....Spanish, Saracens, Moors, Byzantines, etc. and most were constructed in the 1200-1400 period. They are rather stark, unelaborate affairs though many are HUGE. here's a pic of the one in Otranto which is pretty typical of what we've seen. We also visited the cathedral in Otranto that had a beautiful mosaic floor, much of which was covered and in the process of restoration.

A bit further south along the coast is the small town of San Cesarea di Terme. The "terme" part of that refers to hot springs that have curative powers and there are treatment centers there to take advantage of the springs. It's something like the Calistoga hot springs but apparently lots of Europeans have health insurance that covers treatment in these places. One of the buildings there was built by some one that admired buildings he had seen in Egypt so he built this:

We had lunch in Otranto then back "home" to Copertino where we visited the castle and cathedral, both of which were closed. Tomorrow we move to a new location in the center of the "heel" where we can visit the city of Matera in Basilicata (where Passion of the Christ was filmed if anyone saw that film) and see the "trulli" dwellings in central Puglia.

We've been pretty fortunate in having good places to stay...hope it continues.

On to Puglia

We arrived in Rome and picked up the rental car and set out for Sant' Agata di Puglia where we had reservations at an agriturismo near the town. The drive was to take about 3-4 hours and off we went with Ms. GPS leading the way. The "Auto Grill" on the autostrada provided our first meal in mainland Italy and it was surprisingly good......a decent salad and a pasta with tuna sauce that I'll make when I come home. We got off the freeway as directed about 3+ hours into the drive into a totally surreal landscape of acres upon acres of recently plowed agricultural fields with almost nothing growing anywhere and very few trees. It was an area of rolling hills with HUNDREDS of wind turbines! Supposedly, our place was 11 km off the freeway but we drove what seemed like an endless back road with no sign of life. The town of Sant' Agata di Puglia was perched prettily on the top of a hill with nothing else visible for the miles and miles we could see. Our Lonely Planet had told us there was no lodging in Sant' Agata so.........we bailed. Just couldn't face staying in a place that was so NOWHERE (not to mention that we hadn't yet found it after roughly a half hour of following Ms. GPS directions further and further into NOWHERE.)

Then began the task of trying to find lodging......turned out it was NOT an easy task. Ms. GPS was minimal help but ultimately found a hotel outside Foggia, a main northern Puglia city. It was basic at best but had internet access that allowed us to find a more permanent agriturismo for the next three days.

We checked into our new place the next morning and went off to check out a couple of nearby towns, Lucero and Troia. Both were charming and with interesting sites including a castle built in the 1200's that we wandered through. Here's a pic of it. It was a nice relaxing day spent meandering around seeing the local churches, having a late afternoon snack in a bar then dinner back at our agriturismo.

The next day we went to the Gargano Peninsula, an area with great twisty mountain roads high above the ocean and also some beautiful beaches. It also has a one of Italy's biggest national parks inland. We drove through the park in some of the densest forest we have ever seen. Lunch was a real experience! There is an ancient form of fishing using a device called a "trabucco" which is a wood frame that holds a large net submerged in the water. A watchman is posted to watch for fish to swim into the net in schools and the net is pulled up. The water is very clear so apparently this is an effective way to fish and there are still people who use the device. There is a restaurant built next to a trabucco that is reputed to have fabulous seafood so thats where we stopped to have lunch. And it was true....the food was fabulous....fresh and delicious. We had linguine with clams, grilled seppia (cuttlefish) and a very traditional Puglian dish of dried fava beans with chicory. Also had a terrific bottle of wine produced locally from a grape called bombino. Here's a picture of the trabucco.

We celebrated Halloween by driving to southern Puglia, stopping on the way in Lecce for lunch at a restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet . Good call.....great lunch overlooking the Lecce street scene and on to our new digs in Copertino a few miles from Lecce. This place is more urban but not in the center of town. It's a nice comfy place in what has probably been a large home in the past and a convenient place for exploring the southern end of Puglia.

Nov 1 is All Saint's Day and a national holiday so things are closed but lots of people out and about taking advantage of the holiday. We went to Galatina where there is a basilica that is totally covered inside with frescoes. It's really an amazing site. No photos are allowed so I have to try and preserve that memory. Galatina is a small town with about 6 big churches (all catholic of course) so we went to a mass in one of the big churches so I could hear some music. Mass wasn't celebrated in the basilica, unfortunately. Also checked out Gallipoli, an old port town then drove along the southwest coast where we stopped and had some more really good seafood at a place on the beach.

Today we drove the remainder of the southwest coast to Santa Maria di Leuca, the point at the bottom of Italy's heel and the place where the Ionian and the Adriatic seas meet. The weather was pretty unsettled and VERY windy and the waves were ferocious looking. Had a late lunch in Lecce and I FINALLY had my VERY FIRST gelato of the trip! By the time we got home the weather had really turned bad and it has been pouring since.

Sardinia

A warning....this blog could be hazardous to staying awake secondary to the boringness of its author. The purpose of blogging is so that Dick and I will be able to remember our trip in our current state of dementia. Don't feel guilty if you can't slog through it!

Better late than never at starting the blog. Internet access has been a bit of an issue! We arrived in Cagliari, Sardinia at 10 PM 10/21 and spent the night at the best Holiday Inn I've ever seen. Picked the car up in the morning and started on our way to explore Sardinia. Our first stop was in a small town called Nuruminis not far from Cagliari to get our first coffee of the day (the fabulous Cagliari Holiday Inn didn't provide coffee.) The tiny "bar" (local equivalent of the Starbucks on every corner) provided our first espresso and capuchino of the trip provided by our barista, Aurelio, who asked where we were from then pulled out a map of Sardinia and planned our trip for us. He was incredibly personable, knew the entire province and turned out
to be right on in his recommendations for places to eat, things to see and where to go.

We found our "agriturismo" near the town of San Vero Milis (pop 2500) with the help of our trustee GPS and after organizing things a bit, went out for lunch to a small town (Arborea)nearby to Gallo Bianco, a restaurant recomended by Aurelio. We had a fabulous lunch that included a typical Sardinian pasta called malloreddus that is like a small, but long, narrow shell shaped pasta with ridges and also some local wine that was yummy and cheap! (See picture of Gallo Bianco.)

The next day we went up the west coast as far as Alghero, a town that has a great Spanish and Moorish influence . The drive took us along twisty turny mountain roads that provided some truly spectacular views in addition to a viewing of numerous feral pigs along the way.

On the way back we stopped at several "nuraghe." Nuraghe are Bronze age stone dwellings (so about 4000 years old) that number about 8,000 on Sardinia. Many are single dwellings but there are also a number of large communities of nuraghe. They are truly amazing in that they are constructed without mortar and many are as much as 30 meters high.

The last that we saw was in a community of nuraghe called Santa Cristina where they were also having a festival dedicated to Santa Cristina. Many of the kids attending were in costume and were to perform traditional dances later in the night. We got a couple of pics of the kids and their totally obnoxious (but typical teenagers) boyfriends who are now my Facebook friends so that I could send them the photos I took.

One of the structures in Santa Cristina is a sacred well that is constructed such that an opening provides light at the spring and autumn solstice into the well indicating that the residents had an understanding of astronomy to a fairly sophisticated extent.

The next day took us to more nuraghe sites and another area more in the central part of the island. The idea that we were seeing entire villages that were 4000 years old blew us away!

EVERY day had us eating a great meal at lunch that lasted us most all day. In fact, most of the time, we haven't had dinner at all. Our last day in San Vero Milis, we went to another nearby small town restaurant that Aurelio had recommended. It was right on the water in an area where there is a marsh area that produces fabulous shellfish. I had a small order of pasta with tiny clams called arselle and a main of parmesan crusted fish...all terrific. Dick was boring and had calamari.

Our agriturismo was quite rustic but comfortable and our hostess, Daniela, was great!! She put out a great spread of all home made pastries in the morning that were wonderful. She also found our next agriturismo for us and called and made the reservation for us.

The next day (Mon 10/25) we moved to another agriturismo on the east coast of Sardinia in a town called Girasole. We did some traveling up and down the east coast and to some of the towns just inland from there. One of the best was Oliena where we happened upon the cantina that Aurelio had recommended and stopped for a tasting of some excellent and powerful red wines. We HAD to buy a couple bottles to bring home and one to drink later in the trip. The east coast is incredibly mountainous and we did some of the twistiest driving EVER. The old bandit capital of Sardinia is Orgosolo, high n the mountains where there used to be daily murders and kidnappings until about the 1950's. Now just a peaceful little town where there are murals on just about every wall space in the city.

Quite impressive.

On one of our drives high up in the mountains, we stopped for lunch in a town called Gavoi (another Aurelio restaurant recommendation) and found that they were having a "festa" to celebrate San Gavino, whoever he is. It involved lots of good looking young men on horseback all over the town. Both the men and the horse were quite decked out. We went to the Aurelio recommended restaurant and had yet another fantastic lunch.

The next day took us to some more twisty mountain roads but also the beaches below. Truly these roads have been incredibly demanding driving but lots of fun in our little poorly powered Fiat Punto. That night we had a real rip roaring thunder and lightening storm. We waited for a break in the storm and went our for our first pizza! I also tried another Sardinian traditional pasta called "culurgiones", a kind of ravioli-ish thing filled with potato flavored with mint and cheese and with a tomato sauce on top with more pecorino grated on top. Yummy....I could eat those many more times!

The next day we meandered our way back to Cagliari to the Holiday Inn so that we would be close to the airport for our early AM flight to Rome. On the way we stopped at a salt pond where flamingos were staying as part of their migration route to Africa.

Sardinia was a great success. I'd come back again. We drove about 920 miles during the one week we were there and there was much left to see!