Puglia- The Heel of the Boot, Part 4

Ah, fearless readers, we've finally reached the last post for my Puglia trip. I was daunted by the task of writing about so many cities in one post so I broke up the entire trip into more manageable parts, and this one will be the last!

After four nights in our trullo just outside Alberobello, we headed to Lecce to explore the southern half of Puglia.

On our way we stopped at Cisternino, another small Italian town. The most interesting thing about Cisternino was a small group of Italian men who we found in a park playing some kind of game. We watched for several minutes trying to discover the rules and objectives of this game without success. They were tossing 5 cent euro coins and then one man retrieved them with a metallic stick that magnetically collected all the coins. It was interesting to watch this group's daily routine.

view from Cisternino

Still not quite sure about this game!

Bet you can find these guys in the same spot every day!

We also made a stop in Ostuni. It was a bit of a larger town, but yet much was still closed at odd hours. We wandered around a bit, popped in a church, tried to find a great view of the detailed dome on one building, and ate a marginal lunch.

Then we were off to Lecce. We found our apartment and got settled. Finally it was time to head into the Old Town of Lecce and wander about. One of my favorite things about Lecce was the wine bars that lined one of the streets off the main square. They were cute, modern and full of local wines.

The next day we headed out to Otranto, a seaside town further south still on the east side of the heel of Italy. After our time there, we crossed to Gallipoli on the west side of the heel. To be completely honest, these towns are all blending together at this point! Otranto has the cathedral with the beautiful mosaic floor and we watched a wedding in progress. We had a nice lunch before getting back in the car! Gallipoli was windy and gray during our time there. I've heard it's really nice during the summer time.

Otranto

Part of the mosaic from inside the church

Italian wedding...complete with video hovercraft?

Gallipoli, Italy

One of the last things we did in Puglia was a winery visit to Castello Monaci. We arranged this visit through a form on their site. We met up with Marco, who gave us a private tour of the winery and all its tanks, barrels, vineyards. Then we sampled six of the red wines they make on site. I discovered a love of the Puglian negroamaro wine, especially the ones that are blends of the negroamaro grape and another local grape, like the Malvasia.

the castle of Castello Monaci

Here are some great pics of Castello Monaci wine.

Some of the vineyards...complete with dirt road on the far right that I drove down. Nice.

You can find all of my pictures online at Flickr.

Puglia- The Heel of the Boot, Part 3

Our adventures in Puglia were still just beginning. On Easter Monday we set off for a big day of city sightseeing along the Adriatic Sea. We first stopped in Monopoli, a cute and traditional small Italian town. We saw ladies doing laundry on their balcony, in a plastic tub. No washing machine for some things, I suppose. We saw churches and castles and groups of old men smoking their morning cigarette.

our first views of the Adriatic Sea

I loved their cute little address signs- every single one was identical in design.

altars to Mary pop up every now and again in Italy

Monopoli's harbor

After Monopoli, we headed just down the road to Polignano a Mare, another seaside town. This town was slightly bigger and the Pasquetta, Easter Monday, celebrations were clearly visible. Several streets were shut down (this added a bit of stress while driving...ugh!) and most of the locals were out enjoying the sunshine that had broken through the morning's gray clouds. We wandered around the old town and found the real gem of the city, a whole parking lot with no one in it! Of course, right? After driving tiny roads and one way streets, we finally happened upon hundreds of parking spots. But, we had already parked. In reality, the real gem of the city is it's seaside cliffs and gorgeous views. I was completely surprised by this and think that this would be a great place to spend some more time in the summer.

Polignano a Mare

There was a bit of poetry and phrases painted on various doors and things in the old town.

Six inch heels and sweatpants? Are you kidding?
Yet I've seen this more than once.

Up next, Trani. We kept reading about this town's cathedral in various articles so we decided to drive quite a bit out of the way to check it out. The cathedral is perched right on the sea and it is nice to look at against the blue of the Adriatic. However that day it was extremely windy and the church was not open, so we couldn't see if there was anything special inside.

The town itself ended up being pretty disappointing overall. I'm not sure if it was because it was Easter Monday or what, but I think we left wondering what all the fuss was about.

Castello Svevo

cathedral by the sea

Despite three stops under our belt for the day, we still had one more planned, Castel del Monte. A castle perched high a top a hill that gives views of all the surrounding areas. I figured that this site would be fairly empty of tourists, given that it was somewhat remote and Easter Monday, but it turned out that I was totally wrong. This Unesco site was packed. Next door was some kind of campground/picnic area which apparently became a meeting spot for every local family over the holiday weekend. We had to park in this area and hike up to the castle. The castle itself was fairly basic, no decorative details or extravagance. There was a €5 charge to enter the castle, but they had a sign that teachers could receive a reduced price. When we went inside we eached showed off our Italian Carta d'Identita and told the guy we were teachers. He balked at our proof! How could we be teachers in Italy? Where did we work? He referred to a colleague who took one look at our cartas and said we were, in fact, entitled to the price for teachers, which turned out to be FREE! Score one for the American girls working in Italy.

Puglia- The Heel of the Boot, Part 2

Easter Sunday. Surely everything is closed in Italy, yes?

Mostly true, but not entirely!

We headed out first to the Grotte di Castellana, an underground series of caves that are accessible by tourists. Using our Alitalia boarding passes, we scored a few euro discount on the complete tour of the cave system. A few times a day they offer the tour in English and German. This proved to be a huge advantage since our Italian isn’t fluent and the Italian groups were HUGE!

You're only allowed to take pictures in the first cavern.

The caves were really spectacular, especially the end of tour gem, the White Cave. It is really something. Everything is white because of mineral deposits. There are several other sections, noted quite literally by our tour guide, “a cone of gelato”, “the Italian flag”, “the Leaning Tower of Pisa”. 

The caves were really amazing and well worth the visit. 

After leaving the caves, we headed to the small town of Locorotondo. This was the cutest little white town. Everything is white. Restaurants were full of people celebrating Easter lunch. We wandered the town, snapping pictures of interesting oddities, like the “Lenten Witch” that dangled above the streets.

Locorotondo, a cute little white town, with the Lenten witch hanging in the street

Then we headed down the road just a bit to Martina Franca, a larger town nearby. We just wandered around the town here as well. It felt similar to Locorotondo but has a full collection of Baroque architecture on display in the historic center. Four of the ancient city walls still stand today, amidst several old palazzi.

stairs to nowhere?

  
You can see where our trip took us with this map I created. Each different color of pin represents a different day of our travels. 

At this point, it was time to head home. Arriving back at our trullo, we prepared a small antipasti spread to celebrate Easter and then bundled up in blankets to sit outside and enjoy the clear countryside sky for several hours. 

Yum! The crudo we had was some of the best we've ever tasted!