Puglia, sunshine, wine… and week long Sunday afternoons?

Torre Carnne

This week it has been all about Puglia, the southern region that is the heal if you think of Italy as a boot. It is a pretty laid back part of the world being more like a mix between Greece, Spain and the southern USA / Mexico given the heat and the parched landscape. It’s flatter than most of the rest of Italy so much so that we have not fallen out of bed when coming down the ladder so often. Campsites world wide tend to be located where nothing else more profitable can happen and a level site in Italy is rarer than an Italian who stops at a zebra crossing : )  Puglia is also the only area in Italy with minimal risk of seismic activity but we aren’t parking under any flyovers / bridges / tall buildings… Washington DC had never had an earthquake until we got there.

a 'Trulli' in Ostuni area... not the town house!

We started at Torre Carnne, a sunny  beach hugging hamlet with lots of bars, pizzerias and holiday rentals. We had a romantic meal (sorry no yacht and ring, Kate) and our first pizza. The restaurant was good but to be honest the pizza was not one to write home about…opps, too late!

Then on to Ostuni, the white city that sits up an a rocky bluff about 12km from the coast The old town is literally a white, gleaming, simmering magical jewel from a distance. At first sight Ostuni is more biblical vision than the dense warren of tightly packed shapes of medieval architecture intersected by single track cobbled streets that it turns into on closer inspection. Many of the so called streets are too narrow for even the smallest car. Although it is a little surreal and has the feel of a well proportioned movie set real people do live here swelled by camera clicking tourists from around the world – the view to is pretty impressive. 

Ostuni

We like Ostuni…  and even considered buying a town house there… well restored 3 houses made into one which was connected to six or seven others in ways that can only evolve over untold years of continuous habitation. Bottom line? it would be fun to live here - for a few years anyway. However, when you came to visit you would think that we had gone crazy!

Idiot abroad?

Lecce

Ostuni madness gave way to big city grandeur. Lecce is one of the biggest cities in Southern Italy but the old historical city centre is walkable and after camping that’s just what we did. We got the bus into the centre, always an experience in another country and walked and walked. The guide books call it the Florence of the South, beautiful, baroque, limestone facades and it even has a giant Opera House but Florence it is not. There are no beggars for a start : ).

We move on to Gallipoli via Cutrofiano, a little town the size of Woodbridge that was in the middle of a 2 day festival. Cutrofiano’s festival just highlights how far climate and its resulting impact on culture shape the way we spend our day. Culrofiano at 12:30 was completely empty – nothing moved – some festival! Can you imagine Woodbridge or Aldeburgh at mid day, carnival day? It would be a mass of people, the day finishing with a procession around tea time maybe. In Southern Italy (well anywhere hot) after lunch it’s just like a Sunday afternoon – every day of the week. The festival didn’t start until the  town had woken up again at around 5pm. By this time we were all walked out in the 30C heat, totally knackered and had moved on to our campsite in Gallipoli. Sometimes it’s tough being British and while we are on that subject it does not come any tougher than what happened to us Brits at Gallipoli. Gallipoli was one of the Allies great disasters in the first World War. The plan thought up by Winston Churchill to end the war early by creating a new front resulted in the loss of thousand of lives as we totally underestimated the opposition.

Cutrofiano

We didn’t underestimate the opposition, armed with extra fly spray, earplugs (dogs and bells this time) and an offer from Michel to learn to drive like an Italian. Although parking is the national sport in Italy driving is something that they are very, very proud of. We can now drive in insanely narrow streets where people just stop their cars anywhere (even in the road in front of you) to say “ciao” or pop into the local shop. We do this at speed while using our mobile phone, smoking, drinking a cup of coffee and talking to the passengers in the back. OK, I lied about the passengers bit – we don’t have any.

We have now travelled over 2000 miles and are now rapidly approaching the toe of Italy where we will begin to head north and slowly back to the UK

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Take care

Den and Jane X

PS Think of us writing the blog, sitting here in our swimming costumes, after two days on the beach.