It's June 7, and it's back to the Italian mainland for us on this long day of travel. Back on the ferry across the Straits of Messina to the toe of Italy at Villa San Giovanni...
Stazione Ferroviaria di Siracusa... (photo courtesy Google Streetview)
Oops, wrong train....(photo courtesy Google Streetview)
This train will continue onto Roma Termini, after we disembark at Salerno...
Mount Etna is quieter on this day, perhaps sad to see us go...
It's not a long ferry ride to the Italian mainland...
Our train onboard the ferry...
And from Villa San Giovanni on the mainland we head north to Stazione Salerno....
And stock up at the nearby Salumeria....
on Italian cheese, prosciutto, and wine to enjoy on board....
We arrived in Bari quite tired after a 15-hour day on the train, and for the first time on our trip, it was raining. We spent the night at the Hotel Excelsior, next to the Bari train station.
A very modern Stazione Bari Centrale, so different from the Stazione we would see later in Milan...this and the next photo were taken the next morning, back in the warm sunshine of southern Italia...
After an excellent breakfast at the Excelsior, we had a long walk to the Europcar car rental location about 25 minutes away...and we made a friend...
The Citroen Ami...a car with a goofy grin...
But it's not a car, it's an electric quadricycle, with a top speed of 45km/h. It's totally symmetrical, same on left and right as it is front and back.
At the Europcar location, this time we do not have full insurance with no deductible as we had in Ortigia, so time to take a photo or two of the existing damage on our white Fiat Panda so as not to be charged for it later...
So then we hit the road towards our rented trullo, Trullo Abate near Ceglie (pronounced SHE-Lee) Messapica
While we enjoy driving the backroads rather than the highways, it does limit the choices of places to stop for lunch, so we stopped at La Baracca - The Shack...and parking our Panda in the shade, unlike its twin...
Our first look at a trullo...a traditional Apulian dry stone home with a conical roof. Apparently they were built that way since there was high taxation back then on property, so these homes could be easily dismantled when the tax inspectors were in the area. Many are still lived in, like this one...
But many, sadly, have been abandoned...
And some, like our rented one, have been upgraded and now used as vacation homes. We had found Trullo Abate on VRBO.com back in 2019 when we first planned to go to Italy in 2020. We postponed and changed dates more than once and the owner was very accommodating. It was good to finally get here.
For more on Trullo Abate visit:
Guard dog Nica, included in the rent....
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actually a very friendly, affectionate border collie who would stay with us for the entire week...
But before we can settle in, we are off to a grocery store in Ostuni...maybe we'll get a ham, or two....not quite the same obsession with refrigeration as we have back home...
and this grocery store has a small playground in front, perfect for small children and parents, while they enjoy the Quarta Caffe inside...
While there are plenty of other trullo rental homes in the area, it is in the countryside set on a large property among olive and almond trees...
So the last bit of road to get to it is a bit bumpy, and due to some recent rain, a bit wet...
The next morning we set off for Lecce, about a two hour drive through olive grove after olive grove, when using the back roads instead of the highways, and as far south into the Italian heel as we would go...
But first a stop in Ostuni for coffee & pastry, standing at the bar of course. Another thing about Italian coffee bars, they often serve coffee with a small glass of water, though not this time...
And if coffee isn't your cup of tea, how about trying their wonderful assortment of light bulbs....they were too busy so we never did find out what this is all about...juice apparently and we supposed the top comes off.
We thoroughly enjoyed Lecce whose golden limestone buildings seem to glow, even under cloudy skies...
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with its impressive piazzas, car-free as in many "centro storico" in Italy. ZTLs, as they are called - Traffic Restricted Zones....
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narrow alleyways, with shops and homes, and balconies everywhere....and ladies carrying home their groceries in a basket on their heads...
Porta Napoli...built in 1548...
and its Teatro Romano, which held 25,000 people in its heyday...
the Campanile del Duomo...(Bell Tower)...we stood outside the entrance for a few moments, deciding whether we wanted to take the elevator to the top....and then a man came out and said loudly to his wife "18 piastres juste pour monter en haut!". "Piastres" is Quebecois slang for dollars, so "18 dollars just to go the the top!"
So I turned to him and said "Quebec!" in French. We chatted for a while, they were from St. Bruno on Montreal's south shore. We agreed with him about the 18 piastres.
and finally Lecce's churches, its Baroque churches...with incredibly ornate facades...
first, the Lecce Duomo, the Cattedrale di Maria Santissima Assunta e San Oronzo...plenty of baroque detail in the facade...
Chiesa di Santa Chiara...even more Baroque detail...
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just look at that detail....the hours it must have taken to create....
look closely and it even looks back at you...
After lunch, in a nearby cafe next to the baroque-est church of them all...
We drive to Ostuni - la Citta Blanca, the White City...
Note the ZTL sign on the right, that red circle....time to park the car....
every white city needs a red dress....and if in Italy, a red, green, and white bicycle...
la Citta Blanca, where even the delivery vans are white...
time to enjoy an afternoon caffe, but this bar (coffee shops in Italy are called bars) is right on the piazza so we won't be standing at the counter indoors for this one....
caffe americano for the signora, espresso for the signore, while we check our map...
and enjoy this view...
and climb...
but the views are terrific, and slightly tilted in this case.....it was a lot of climbing, out of breath....
The Adriatic Sea in the distance, while the accordionist played his very best version of "Don't You Step On My Blue Suede Shoes"....we didn't....
un gatto nero in the città bianca....
Cue the red dress...
Public water fountains are common in Italy, and a welcome sight in the June heat....
on the other hand....right turn! and not to go Dubai either...
Hadn't seen one of these souvenir penny machines in ages.....of course now it's a Euro coin not a penny (about $1.35 CAD at the time)....
shhhhh....we've got to stop meeting like this....shhhh.....
and then there's this, the peculiar practice of posting obituaries on boards anywhere....
And after visits to two terrific towns, it's back to our trullo....just in time for sunset...
Over the next couple of days, we visited the Round City, as well as a UNESCO site, discovered just how many olive trees there are in Puglia, and enjoyed an excellent seaside meal at Ham Beach. That's all in the next installment.
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