For our post race vacay Ella and I jetted off to Puglia, the ‘heel’ of Italy’s boot.
Though it‘a becoming a more popular tourist destination Puglia is yet to be overrun by foreign tourism and retains a lot of its authenticity.
For instance there remains a decent siesta, the churches and historic buildings close, and restaurants open late encouraging you into slow easy going days and some late night adventuring.
From our arrival into Bari we headed straight to our accomodation winding through endless olive fields on small roads lined with stone walls. Our place was part of a Masseria (a restored farm house). The estate featured many fruit trees, an olive farm plus a pool and tennis court. Can confirm it was too hot for any tennis.
With all our focus on training and racing we hadn’t really done any research and explored Puglia at our whim resulting in carefree spontaneous discovery and exceeded expectations.
For starters the night of our arrival we drove to the near by costal town of Monopoli. With easy parking and no crowds we wandered the charming streets stopping for an apperol spritz and baby squid with a view over looking the Adriatic. Initially quite unassuming the town came truly alive at sunset. The main streets and squares filled and were buzzing with visitors and live music. We strolled the coastline and took the atmosphere in. When it came time to eat dinner you only had to go a street back to escape the hustle. We landed upon a traditional restaurant where guests and staff spoke only Italian featuring a glamorous Italian woman who requested an extra chair and table for her French bulldog to be served his bottled water.
We both chose, somewhat predictably, pasta - mine was an extremely delicious mussel spaghetti.
I felt very convincingly that we had arrived in Italy!
Day 2 involved visiting the UNESCO World Heritage Site in Alberobello.
Aberobello is famous for its Trulli. Trulli are a conical house design over a thousand years old made from the local stone. These were built without mortar so they could easily be dismantled to avoid paying taxes to the King at time of inspection.
You can see these trulli all over the Puglia area however Alberobello house the most concentrated group.
A lot of the trulli have been restored and plastered making for picturesque streets. While wandering through you can explore traditional homes free of charge and find some untouched age old trullo.
If you ever visit here I would recommend Ristoraunte il pinnacolo for lunch. We got there on opening and managed to nab the best seat in the house.
With bellies full of pasta we searched out a place to swim and siesta landing on Polignano a Mare. We parked up on a beach called Cala Porto for the afternoon.
The town is perched upon cliff tops with caves at their bases. From this beach you can walk through a cave to a spot of cliff jumping as well as swim through some straight off the beach.
With crystal clear waters and books in hand we were very content.
We stayed here for the evening and google came through with a rooftop spot for a sunset cocktail. Ella realised she does not like Campari and I reconfirmed that Moscow mules are delicious.
Given all the pasta we mixed it up with pizza and after consuming a whole one each it was home to food coma.
By this point we had read a little information on the area and planned to visit Ostuni with a stop on the way.
We chose to stop in Locorotondo which turned out to be quite the little gem. A town washed in white with panoramic views over the valley what’s not to love. We again got lost in the narrow streets stumbling across a local artist whom Ella purchased a small piece of work off.
On our way out of town we spotted a conspicuous path lined with cypress trees looking quite out of place. Our curiosity got the better of us and we had to follow it ending up at the most grand cemetery I have ever seen. Each family plot was like its own mausoleum. Quite hard to describe how it felt being there and the impact it had on us but it certainly was magnificent.
We continued the road trip to Ostuni. While exploring an Italian male called out to us offering food - sounds dodgy but given he was wearing an apron and easy on the eyes we decided to follow him and check it out. We came out in a tiny square between houses over hung with bougainvillea. They had us sold and I have to say the gorgonzolla and pear pizza was heaven.
Surprisingly not sick of churches we ventured to the main one. A small elderly Italian woman was cleaning the floors. Despite the signs saying it was closed she called us through and quite aggressively forced us to walk over her clean floor. She was quite passionate in gesture even if we couldn’t understand her. The next couple she called in spoke Italian and didn’t make it out so easy getting stuck in conversation yelling across the church because she couldn’t hear easily then they proceeded to get berated for not leaving an offering.
We could’ve walked the streets for hours but needed to get home for a swim (yes, needed) before our cooking class!
We booked the cooking class through Airbnb experiences after seeing the extortionate prices of other ones online. This was well reviewed and well priced so we locked it in.
The class took place on a small section of farm near Monopoli and is hosted by the lovely Lucia.
Her and her husband work in the film industry and moved out of Rome to seize the opportunities coming up in the Puglia region. They purchased a section of farm and renovated the old farm house (previously used for animals, plant shelter, to house a worker and without floor or ceiling) into a home for them and their daughter.
Lucia loves pasta and loves to cook. She admits her and her daughter have pasta everyday for at least one meal - a habit I think I could easily get on board with.
She taught us how to make two types of pasta by hand; oricchette and cavatelli.
We hand rolled these and left them to dry in the sun. Traditionally she told us her grandmother would wake early on a Sunday and have enough made for everyone before they had even got up. Ella and I will seriously need to up our speed if we have any hopes of this.
While drying we explored her garden. We picked fresh tomatoes for dinner and had our eyes opened to mulberries (delightfully sweet) and fresh almonds (quite creamy) which we both tried for the first time.
Pasta was served two ways - traditional tomato sauce that had been brewing for 4 hours and the other with fresh prawns and a mix made from zucchini.
This was all served up with caramelised onion pie, homemade focaccia and a local red wine. Then topped off with toasted almond clusters dipped in dark chocolate with some left spare to take home.
We felt really privileged to be able to share in this experience with Lucia and her family at their home.
All too quickly it was our last day in Italy. As we were flying out of Brindisi (the more southern airport) we decided to visit the city of Lecce.
We arrived into a town square with an old amphitheatre sunken into the street and fuelled up with a cannoli and traditional custard filled pastry.
Via the information centre here we purchased a ticket to explore the highlights of baroque architecture.
First the Duomo situated in a beautiful piazza where decorative Baroque dominates the surrounding facades. Here we were able to go down into the crypt and venture into excavated areas with uncovered human bones.
After a pasta break the ticket also took us to Basilica Di Santa croce with walls lined with baroque altars, Chiesa di San Matteo hosting 12 Apostle statues, Chiesa di Santa chiara small but the most majestic.
Lecce also hosts 3 large gates, remontants of historic city access.
From here we took a trip to the coast for a quick dip and refresh before heading to the airport. Fittingly our last meal was pizza and we enjoyed every bit!
Now we fly to Barcelona before going our separate ways! Safe to say we had an amazing time in Italy, how lucky we are to have been there together making memories to cherish forever.
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