Three weeks in Puglia, the heel of the boot: sunshine, trulli, olive trees, fish, and forts

Our Italian friends thought we were pazzi to go to Puglia in November, but it turned out to be a great time to visit, at least this year when temperatures were in the mid 60s to the low 70s the entire three weeks of our visit, without even a drop of rain.  Puglia is in the south, the so-called "heel of the boot," so warmer temperatures are expected, but this was an unusually sunny and warm November, luckily for us.

We took RyanAir into Bari and spent a couple of days there, exploring the old town and taking a day trip to nearby Trani, only 45 minutes away by train.

Tom and St. Nicola at the eponymous
cathedral in Bari

inside the cathedral

St. Nicola Cathedral (above)
Below, one of Federico II's many castles--in Bari

OgniSanto in Trani

In front of Ogni Santo

fantastic seafood in Trani

fortress in Trani

sax player at Trani cathedral, typical street in trani

 \Next we  headed to Matera, a UNESCO world heritage site in Basilicata.  Matera is the oldest continuously populated site in Europe, with evidence of human habitation going back to the neolithic period.  Many of the houses are in caves or built above a cave.  We stayed in a cave hotel with a fantastic view of the historic center.

Breakfast with a view of Matera from the hotel terrace (above)
our cozy cave hotel room  (below)

Our guide poses by a model of Matera

Carlo Levi wrote about Basilicata in his famous book "Christ Stopped at Eboli" which was made into a movie in the 60s, filmed in Matera.  Mel Gibson filmed much of 'The Passion of Christ" in Matera also, a fact memorialized by the creation of dishes bearing his name in various restaurants .  Tom tried pasta di Mel Gibson, which was pasta with mushrooms and tomatoes and not bad despite the tourist trap name.  But back to Levi.  His book brought attention to the poverty of Matera where people were living in the small cave homes without indoor plumbing, heating with fires that vented through small holes in the roof, and in generally unhealthy conditions.  Malaria and other diseases were rampant and there was a high rate of infant mortality.  The government decided to evacuate the town and everyone was relocated to apartments outside the centro storico.  We did a tour with a guide whose mother was born in a cave house in Matera and was one of those relocated when she was 6 years old.  Our guide said her mother, and the others that she met who were relocated, were very happy about the move because at last they had plumbing, heat, and other modern conveniences.  Eventually some reconstruction was done and there are again some people living in centro, but not many. Most of the structures in use are now hotels, restaurants, or shops.  Matera has been chosen as the European cultural capital for 2019 and a lot of restoration work is being done, but this is still the time to visit before it becomes more widely known and packed with tourists. There are beautiful cave churches with frescoes going back to the Byzantine period, but which are fragile and cannot be photographed or touched.  They are very similar to those found in Cappadocia in Turkey.   

Inside a "typical" cave house now a
museum (left) Tom pets the cow at the
Cathedral (above)

 

       
We did a day trip to two nearby small towns, Grassano and Grottole, memorialized by Carlo Levy and also visited the Matera museum which has over 70 of his photographs and paintings.  The photographs in particular give a good understanding of what life looked like in Matera in the 40s and 50s.

Leaving Matera, we headed back to Puglia and the val d'itria, visiting Castello di Monte, another of Federico II's castles, en route.  This castle is an unusual octagonal shape and very well restored. 

Castel di Monte
Nancy in window seat at Castel below

After checking out the castle we headed to Alberobello, another UNESCO world heritage site, and headquarters of trulli country.  Trulli are small circular stone buildings with pointy roofs.  Nobody knows exactly why the trulli were built that way, but the popular theory is that it was so they could easily be pulled apart when the tax man came around.  Fewer trulli = lower taxes.  Alberobello has over 1500 trulli and is very picturesque but also very touristy.  It would probably be hellish in summer with jam packed streets and temperatures in the high 90s, but it was gorgeous on a warm November day with only a few dozen tourists at most.  Unfortunately, I LOST MY IPAD WITH ALL MY PHOTOS so we have almost no pictures of this photogenic town as Tom, uncharacteristically, did not take many trulli pix.

These are  just pictures taken from the parking lot when we went back to see if we could recover the missing ipad.  Always fun to visit the carabinieri and the polizei municipale on vacation!  They were very nice but clearly thought we were nuts to waste time asking if anyone had turned in an ipad.  I may have subsequently overdone it on trulli pictures during our 5 day stay in Cisternino, near Alberobello, but they are adorable.  I kept expecting Snow White and the dwarves to appear.

We stayed in a trullo (trullo is one, trulli is plural) on a small farm with horses, 3 dogs, and 7 cats, one of whom adopted us.  It was a beautiful spot and close to many other places to visit for day trips.  Breakfast on the terrace every morning with delicious home baked treats was a great way to start every day.

Entry to the B&B, Riposo del vento

view from our door to the terrace

Tom feeds
his new friends (left)
and poses by the pedestrian path to the B&B (right).  Mid November and the roses were still blooming!



The B&B was 4 km from Cisternino and made a  great base for exploring the val d'itria. Puglia produces more olives than the rest of Italy combined, and I think we drove past every tree, many of them being harvested.  There is a drive called the olive road where you can see olive trees with incredible trunks, they must be hundreds of years old.

We made day trips to Ostuni, a beautiful white city, to  Ostuni di Marina, by the sea, Taranta, a port town with a long history and a medieval fort, Martina Franca, a baroque town, and Ceglie Messapica, a "typical town" recommended highly by our hosts.  A large part of the fun was just enjoying the countryside, spotting trulli, and eating great fish and rustic pugliese dishes (when we could find an open restaurant).

one of the old gates to Martina Franca

typical narrow vico in Ostuni

Tom at the Adriatic, Ostuni di Marina

I like big arches and I cannot lie....Castle in Ostuni

 I just liked this sign in a window in Martina Franca.  It says
You cannot buy happiness, but you can buy a good artiginal gelatto, and that is practically the same thing!

Too bad the shop was closed, I would definitely have tried that gelatto!

like

Always willing to lend a hand; at the Archeological museum in Taronto

View of modern Taronto from medieval fortress

Enjoying a spritz in Ostuni

A scenic vico in Cisternino

Fortress in Taronto

We left our trullo behind and headed to Lecce, often called "the Florence of the South."  Lecce is an opulently baroque city with a wealth of churches, palazzi, and saintly relics.  We stayed in another B&B, a block from the walls of the citta vecchia, and enjoyed incredible homemade pugliese pastries and torts every day in the garden.   After a couple of days in Lecce, we did a day long driving tour of the Salento, the very tip of Italy, including a stop at the most southerly point, Santa Maria di Leuca, where you can first see the sunrise and the sunset in Italy. On a clear day you can see Albania and even Corfu, but it apparently as not clear enough when we visited.

ristorante 00, the only place in Lecce with orario continuato

papier mache is huge in Lecce, there is even a museum for it

fresco from the clositers at the duomo in Galatina.  The entire church is covered in freschi, but no photos are allowed inside the church./  Galatina is also famous as the home of the Tarantella.

On the promenade in Castro

church in the Salento

orechiette with clams and broccoli rabe,
local specialty

modern sculpture at the tip of Italy

Santa Maria di Leuca

roman theater, Lecce

Tom enjoys the museo romano in a mature fashion

children's day in the public park, Lecce

sculpture at ponti risposo

Finally, we had to head to Brindisi and our flight back to Arezzo.  Brindisi, like Bari, has an old town and a lot of fresh seafood.  We had a great little studio apartment in the centro, and the owners were a perfect example of the famous southern Italy warmth, even giving us a ride to the airport at 6 a.m.  I highly recommend staying with them if you are ever in Brindisi, Federico II on Via Federico di Svevia.  An hour flight from Brindisi to Bologna followed by a 1 3/4 train ride to Arezzo and we were home, ready to head to the States for the holidays.