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| Breakfast on the ferry coming into Brindisi |
Sadly,
we bid farewell to Greece and sailed on an overnight car ferry from Patras to
Brindisi in Italy. Our plan was to sleep in our campervan, Vanni as the ferry
supplied electricity.
However, it was incredibly hot and noisy on the
vehicle deck so we ended up sleeping on couches upstairs amid the noise and
hubbub of passengers. We amazed ourselves by actually getting some sleep!
We arrived in port early morning, then drove
around to see a bit of Brindisi before heading up the coast, and driving along the
beaches of southern Puglia.
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| Fishermen selling the day's catch |
It was a lovely drive. We saw lots of beautiful
tiny bays and inlets around Brindisi and beyond, and fishermen selling their
catch from their colourful boats.
We based ourselves at a busy Italian holiday
campsite in Capitoli where we stayed for the night.
Our campsite, opposite the beach, was a
‘villaggio’ style which provides everything the Italian holiday maker might
wish for! Very ‘Club med’ and very, very noisy!!!
The ‘beach’ was amazing as it consisted of the
most amazing coastline of rocky grottos and old Roman ruins that people used
for sunbathing, picnicking, and to dive from.
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| Ostuni |
The water was stunningly clear.
We bought a kilo of fresh mussels just across
the road and Leigh Googled a recipe for them so we had a great meal of ‘drunken
mussels’ for dinner – yummy! They were very small compared to NZ green lipped
mussels but very sweet and creamy.
An
absolute highlight was stopping at the town of Ostuni, one of the three
beautiful ‘white villages’ of the Puglia area.
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| Ostuni street |
Built on a hill overlooking olive groves and
the sea, and with all the buildings painted white, it was quite spectacular.
The way it was built, and the ancient old walls were beautiful and totally
captured our imagination.
We walked through the maze of winding and
narrow pedestrian-sized streets, and were continually amazed by the way the
locals were able to drive in such narrow places. Needless to say, most of the
cars were small ones.
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| Monopoli |
Our next stop was Monopoli, where in the older
quarter, tall medieval houses are built right up to the quay.
We found it was very easy to walk around
Monopoli’s maze of little streets, which are partially enclosed by a castle
wall with old cannons pointing out to sea.
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| Trulli housing in Alberobello |
We discovered a marketplace that included a
cheese shop with delicious local cheeses, and there were lots of vegetable
stalls with a great range of goodies to choose from, so we had a shopping spree
– beats supermarkets.
The town overlooks the sea and had many quaintly painted fishing boats lined up ready for the daily fishing foray, and lots of people on the seaside swimming off the rocks.
We had lunch in a lovely place by the port called il Guazzetto Ristorantino.
We had lunch in a lovely place by the port called il Guazzetto Ristorantino.
They had what looked like a fabulous view to the
sea, which turned out to be a very clever photo - hooked us in!
We found the meal and service to be excellent
and with a great waiter. We also met an Italian who had lived in Canada and
wanted to practice his English. It was a most entertaining afternoon.
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| Beautiful Locorotondo |
Leaving Monopoli, we drove to Alberobello where
we saw some amazingly distinctive ‘Trulli’ houses. They are circular with a
cone shaped roof, all made of stone, whitewashed, single story, ancient, and
still inhabited.
We watched workmen replace some of the stones
in a cone-shaped roof – fascinating and highly skilled work with no mortar
used.
The campground provided a free shuttle service
into Alberobello and we wandered around the tiny and beautiful (and hot)
streets of the Rione Monti and Aia Piccola quarters, which are full of Trulli
houses and shops.
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Sassi rock housing,
Matera (UNESCO)
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While resting under a shady tree we observed
the local parking wardens who all wore these cute little white handbags –
reminded us of our friend Greggles!
A few days later, we drove to Locorotondo,
another white village of the Puglia region where we wandered through the tiny
streets.
It was very beautiful and also very hot.
We drove further south on a tricky route to
finally find the town of Matera where we walked around the ancient town to see
the ‘Sassi di Matera’ (meaning ‘stones of Matera’), which is a UNESCO World
Heritage site.
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Inside a Sassi cave
house, Matera (UNESCO)
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The Sassi are houses built into the rocks. Many
are caverns, and the streets in some parts of the Sassi are on the rooftops of
other houses.
They originate from a prehistoric (troglodyte)
settlement; apparently one of the first human settlements in Italy.
Matera is the only place in the world where
people are still living in the same houses as their ancestors after 9,000 years
- although many are now uninhabited. We viewed one that was set up as in the
early days, which was fascinating.
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Reggio de Calabria port,
looking over to Sicily
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We trekked on through Metaponto beach to Trebisacce
(near the instep of the boot of Italy).
We thought the drive from Trebisacce along the
Ionian Sea to be rather boring. The villages were old, tired looking, and dirty, and the beaches were not terribly clean,
and pebbled rather than sandy.
Also, driving conditions were difficult due to
the heat and a very hot and gusty wind. We saw lots of bushfires in the
surrounding hills that were being driven by the hot wind. We pressed on and
kept driving down the coast to get away from the smoke.
Finally, the late hour, heat and tiredness
pushed us to find the first camping ground that could accommodate our large
campervan, which turned out to be in Pietrapaola Marina.
The campsite was right on the beachside, but the
hot the wind provided a disincentive be on the beach. We had our first Italian
pizza at the campsite’s pizzeria. Unfortunately, they anglicised it and we
ended up with the ‘tourist menu’ – aaagh!!
The next morning, we then moved on to Reggio de
Calabria at the toe of the boot of Italy.
We couldn’t find a camping ground in Reggio so
we free-camped on the port - our point of departure for the ferry to our next stop
- Messina, in Sicily.