Puglia, Part 1

Puglia, a region in southern Italy. The heel of the boot. A part of Italy we had not seen before. Who knew it was so beautiful? Well, our friend Maria who owns Roma II, and our friends the Antonicelli family, knew it because that's where they came from when they immigrated to the US. Our old friends in Sorrento, Marco and Antonella know it, and they hooked us up with old friends of theirs, Franco and Ilaria, who have a bed and breakfast deep in the heel, along the western side, very near the sea. And now, we know it and we have new friends! Oh, my beloved Italy, you never cease to surprise and amaze me!

We arrived at the Rome Fiumicino airport late morning, rented a car and took off driving across southern Italy, without much of a plan. We only knew we were headed toward Puglia and the eastern shores of the Italian coast. (Click photos to enlarge, then hit back button to return.)

 We drove from the region of Lazio (where Rome is located), through Abruzzo, down the coast through Molise, and finally into Puglia. It was a gorgeous drive, on well-built highways, through snowcapped mountains and beautiful green valleys, through lots of tunnels and over lots of bridges. Rather than built roads around mountains, or down into valleys, Italians prefer to go as straight and level as possible. Hence, the tunnels and bridges. There was very little traffic, and it moved very fast - up to 140 kilometers per hour at times (about 87 mph), with the occasional BMW or Porche whizzing by at maybe 175 or 200 kph!

Although I almost always have all of our accommodations reserved ahead, this time, I thought it would be fun to wing it. Turns out, it wasn't such a good idea since I had not done any real research on the area, and the beach towns where we thought we might find a place to stay, mostly between Bari and Brindisi, turned out to be very industrial and not very picturesque. Having been on the road for several hours by this time, we were getting tired, so we headed inland. 


Sam had actually done a little research on Puglia the day before we left Greece, and found some information about an inland town I had heard about before, called Alberobello. It's a fairly big tourist area because the town mostly consists of buildings called trulli (plural for trullo). We decided to head in that direction, and long story short, we found a decent, modern hotel, a short walk from the main historic center, and after settling in, walked into town to find some dinner.

His Majesty Hotel, only €80 per night.

This what we found in the town center...

 Street after street of these quaint little homes, some with symbols painted on their roofs. The symbols are primitive, pagan, magic, or christian signs.

A lot of the chimneys have these weathervane-type things on top, which we decided may help keep rain out when the wind blows them to face away from the driving rain? Most of them seemed to be the same style, like this one of a gladiator's head.

 Like I said, Alberobello is a tourist destination, and there are lots of cute little shops selling all kinds of locally made arts and crafts. Probably the best souvenir would be one of the little models of the trulli. Some of them are so cute.

I watched a man making one, and I admired the ones he had finished. I really wanted one. Unfortunately, they are pretty heavy (being made of the same limestone the actual house are made of), and Sam reminded me that I would be carrying it if I did buy one!

Our next stop was to stay at a bed & breakfast belonging to friends of our friends, Marco & Antonella, near the small town of Racale, on the western coast of the heel of Italy's boot. Franco and Ilaria own land with two good size guest homes and several small buildings that Marco called trulli, but that are not like the cone topped version of Alberobello. Ilaria and her daughter, Erica, gave us a tour of the property and she called the structures "casadi" (sp?) or something like that, but I cannot find any info. They are much like the trulli we had seen, but had flat roofs. 

They had rain "gutters" on the back side, and this one actually drains inside where the water is stored in a well.

The guest house that we stayed in didn't look like this, but it was built in similar manner, with very thick walls, and had modern dual pane windows and screens on the windows (something we haven't seen much of in Italy - the screens, I mean).

And it had a nice patio in the back...

The other guest house is much larger, two stories, with a nice porch/patio, but we weren't able to see inside because someone was using it.

Franco & Ilaria's house is the largest of all the buildings.

And they have many, many cats, and four dogs, one of which is a bull dog named Dinero (or maybe it's DiNero?).

High season for them doesn't start until the end of June, so the pool was still empty, but it looks like it must be really nice when it's operating.

Also on the property, they have a very large vegetable garden and compost, bee hives, fruit trees, flowers everywhere, and groves of olive trees. It is an amazing place, and only a short drive to the beach. Sam and I are dreaming of taking the whole family either there or to Naxos Island someday...