Trip miles 1,868 (not counting hire car miles)
Having collected the hire car and met Mum at Bari airport
we headed in a nervous convoy down the notoriously fast and difficult roads to
the south of Italy and our home for the next 10 days – a ‘trullo’ deep in the
Puglian valley of Itria. Having joked with Mum that she was going to be staying
in a peasant’s hut we were delighted by the gorgeous little domed home that we
found after some difficulty getting lost in the picturesque but narrow and
confusing lanes.
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| A valley view |
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| Home for 10 days |
The origins of the architectural style of the trulli are
unknown but they effectively keep cool in summer and warm in winter with their
fetching domed roves and circular walls. Ours was well kitted out with a
kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, lounge and dining area and the bonus of a washing
machine - which was gratefully put to use!
Less welcome were the nightly visitors of small scorpions and large and leggy millipedes. Thankfully we were sleeping in Bertha outside!
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| Locorotondo |
The surrounding Puglian towns were all a treat to visit
and spend time just wandering about in. All featured white washed trulli homes
as well as many elegant 17th and 18th century mansion
houses and churches. Our nearest, Locorotondo, Cisternino and Martina Franca
were breezy hill top towns that had grand central squares and narrow side
streets, cool in the heat of a blasting sun under clear blue skies.
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| Meeting the locals |
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| Cisternino Norman Tower |
We quickly declared our favourite to be Cisternino and
enjoyed several visits to sip sunset drinks on the town’s terraced garden
admiring the panoramic views of the valley below us, as well as shopping for shoes
in a fabulous (and cheap!) boutique store tucked into the walls of the 11th
century porto or gateway into the old town.
Whilst lunching a mournful funeral procession passed by with a hundred or so black-clad people holding tubular lillies and led by a solitary bell.
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| Alberobello decorated roof tops |
Alberobello, the main tourist town boasts more than 1000
trulli tumbling down the sides of a forested hill. Early enough to beat the
imagined chaos of the coach touring season we all enjoyed the curious
collection of homes and shops in the old town.
Unlike the trulli in the open
countryside of the valley, the town’s trulli bore distinctive markings on their
slate roofs. Whether religious, superstitious or simply decorative it was
impossible to tell.
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| Alberobello townscape |
Miles beneath the valley floor is the subterranean
complex of Castellana Grotte – a series of cave systems, chasms and canyons
discovered in the early 20th century and previously thought to have
been the mouth of hell by generations of frightened locals.
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| “The Hole” |
We took a guided
tour to admire the mysterious formations of stalactites and stalagmites created
over millions of years.
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| Was this chap in Dr Who? |
Photographs were not allowed once past the mouth of the
cave that was our entry point but the sights of crystal white grottoes and
mysterious pools of green water thrilled us all. Back on terra firma we were
rewarded with a sea view on the balcony at pretty Polignare a Mare, munching
fresh baked pizza and reflecting on the mind-blowing course of time the
grottoes caused us to consider.
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| Polignano coastline |
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| Ostuni through the olive groves |
Along the coastline Ostuni is called the ‘pearl’ of the
south as it sits brightly white and high up on the cliffs overlooking the blue
Mediterranean waters crashing along the rocky and coved coast. A fruitless
search for an amphitheatre in the olive groves beneath the town gave us several
views of its spired and domed skyline after we had wandered around the winding
town walls and peeked into designer hotels and restaurants. Ostuni is the
Puglian playground of the rich and famous!
Venturing further afield we drove down almost to the heel
of Italy to spend a day meandering around the ’Florence of the South’ –
beautiful baroque Lecce. Hot and dusty the town’s streets wound past grandly
decaying palazzo’s and churches and under decorative balconies and struts that
featured flowers, gargoyles, angels, dolphins and dancing horses. More than
forty towering churches and basilica dominated piazzas and courtyards causing
us to wonder just what the baroque Leccese had to atone for when not building
their beautiful city!
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| Lecce Duomo |
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| A tight squeeze (for some) |
We explored the delights of the local cuisine in our
kitchen as Simon embraced fully the ‘cucina povera’ traditions of the region
and produced some stunning dinners based on the bountiful fresh vegetables,
seafood, meats and delicious cheeses which were all cheaply available in the
area which produces 80% of Italy’s pasta and bread products.
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| Tending to the land |
Consigning our Lonely Planet guide book ‘the duffer’ to
the shelf we all enjoyed the local information provided in translation for
visitors. Variously invited “with upturned noses” to enjoy the region's
architecture we were advised that our “gaze would be raped” by such sights as “nervous
and wavy balconies”, a “virgin coming from the east” and that we would
encounter the “people who stared but never said a word” and would travel across
the creations of “communities of ants”.
Most bizarrely we would see “the
scallop of old blankets” – which we never in fact found but enjoyed the notion
of anyway!
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| A "nervous and wavy balcony" in Martina F |
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| Searching for "scallop of old blankets" |
A word about driving in Puglia – it is not for the
faint-hearted. The reputation that southern Italian drivers have of being hot
headed and dangerous is well deserved. Thankfully neither of us was involved in
any accidents whilst driving the hire car whose sharp breaks and assisted power
steering we appreciated when negotiating hair pin bends, lawless junctions,
universally ignored traffic lights, street markets and grumpy siestas.
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| Cars, lorries, bikes and ‘put-puts’ |
Countless times we were overtaken into oncoming traffic
and we learned to expect the unexpected by the driver of the car in front,
behind and out of the blue.
It was a relief to return the car and contemplate
taking Bertha on the toll roads north!
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| Our Italian fleet |
