Puglia, Part 2

We were only supposed to stay at Franco & Ilaria's B&B for two nights, but we were enjoying ourselves so much, we decided to stay for an extra night. Ilaria made us breakfast each morning, which we ate on the patio by the front door, with the cats watching us. And the house had a fully equipped kitchen, so we bought groceries and I made dinner each night, which is one of my favorite things to do while traveling in a foreign country. During the day, we explored the countryside and beaches.


One of our two days we drove to the very tip of Italy's geographic heel, to Santa Maria di Leuca, where the Adriatic and Ionian seas meet. (Click to enlarge photos, then back button to return to blog.)

From there, we drove up the eastern coast. It's not as dramatic as the Amalfi Coast, but still quite beautiful. Since it was not yet high season, there were no crowds and we pretty much had the road to ourselves. We stopped at an area that would be called a beach, even though there was no sand, only concrete and rocks, where we could dangle our feet in the warm waters of the Adriatic.

As usual in the Mediterranean, the water was crystal clear and beautiful. We're not sure what this area once was though. There seems to be volcanic rock, and maybe even some ancient ruins of some kind. Looking at these pictures makes me want to be there again. These giant concrete "jacks," they use to make jetties, look like they were left behind by a giant's child.

A little farther up the road, we stopped at a cafe on a cliff side, that featured some interesting works of art, like this character, and her apparent offspring, who joined us for lunch.

We almost made it to the town of Otranto, but it was getting late, so we headed back across the heel. Turns out, we missed an exhibit we would have liked to see, but didn't find out about until the next day, while we were in Lecce.

 Instead, this is what we saw when we got "home" that evening. Fair trade, I suppose.

The next day we explored the towns of Gallipoli and Lecce. The former is a port town, that I'm guessing hosted a few pirates in its day, from the looks of this carry-out food establishment.

There were other signs of pirate presence...

Actually, this is on top of a chapel that seems to have belonged to a religious society of secular priests, dedicated to the spirits of Purgatory, built in 1660. Interesting. I didn't figure this out until we got home, so now I'm wishing we had gone inside!

Well, so much for Gallipoli... next, we went on to Lecce, said to be the Florence of southern Italy, rich in Baroque architectural monuments.  This is one of the gates into the historic center.

I was fascinated by all the interesting creatures that adorned many of the buildings, like this winged lion...

and this motley crew holding up a balcony.

 Lecce is a university town, and as usual, where there are students, there are bicycles. Maybe all bikes should be painted like this, so drivers would have no excuse not to see them!

One thing we found in Europe this time was that Europeans love our current President. We saw several references to Obama, but this was one of the more interesting ones. We didn't eat here, but we did have a lovely lunch at a wine & book store/cafe, of which I have no photos - I was enjoying my wine too much!

On our return that evening from a full day of sightseeing, we watched the sunset as we sped along the highway...

and when we reached Racale, we stopped at the beach before returning to our comfy little cottage for our last dinner and good nights rest in Puglia.