Blogs from Brindisi, Apulia, Italy, Europe
July 19th 2010
Jakie mogloby być lepsze zakonczenie mojego italian_living, niż pozegnanie Italii z morza? J. zabral mnie z okolic Padwy, pokmnelismy do Urbino, a nastepnego dnia do Brindisi. Urbino chcialam koniecznie zobaczyc, a nie dojezdza tam pociag, więc najlepiej bylo podjechac samochodem. Znalezlismy wspanialy camping na wzgorzu vis a vis miasta, z którego rozciagala się panorama calej starowki, zmieniajacej kolor w zaleznosci od pory dnia. Jak rozbilismy namiot, było już po zachodzie slonca. Gdy dojechalismy do miasta na kolacje, na ulicach nie widzielismy juz zywej duszy i trudno było sobie wyobrazic, ze w ciagu roku Urbino to pelne zycia miasto uniwersyteckie. Ale dzieki temu latwiej było przeniesc się wyobraznia w czasy renesansu, gdy po ciemnych ulicach przemykali się poddani ksiecia Federico da Montefeltro, ktory doprowadzil miasto do jego pietnastowiecznej swietnosci. Urbin... read more
May 12th 2010
Well we have either demonstrated our great flexibility or been sucked in a little by Italy. Not sure which but we changed our plans and will now head to Greece by way of a ferry from Italy rather than making the drive across Croatia, Serbia and Makedonia. So in this post we remain in Italy traveling down the eastern coast probably towards a ferry to Greece from Brindisi. . Venice. Everyone knows about it, has seen the photos, read the stories or seen the movies. I was still surprised by the place. We camped at Punta Sabbioni, across the water from Venice. The books had told us that we would blow the budget in Venice if we decided to stay there, Mestre didn't sound all that appealing so we decided to camp at one of the ... read more
October 31st 2009
This is going to be a short entry because I don't have much time. I don't have internet on this farm, and right now I'm at an internet cafe. I'll explain the longer story later. The gist of it is, this farm isn't so hot. But don't worry, I'm OK. I'm leaving on Monday for another farm where there are a bunch of WWOOFers that are 18. Party! I hope. But anything will be better than where I am now... I arrived at this farm to find that not only are there no other WWOOFers, but the couple who was running the farm together recently divorced. So, it was me and a 40- or 50-something (I'm guessing) recently divorced Italian man with a bad cough. I was a little freaked out the first night. But I ... read more
April 19th 2009
8th day - Saturday We went for a drive to "end of the world." That is what Santa Maria di Leuca is called by the Italians because it is the southern most tip of the peninsula. We didn’t spend much time there as it was starting to sprinkle so we headed up along the coast. It is a beautiful drive reminiscent of the Amalfi Coast. The weather wasn’t cooperative and so the photos turned out like the weather, a bit gray. There is a thermal springs along the way and as we pulled into the little village we all thought we needed a dose of Tums. It turned out that the sulfurous/rotten eggs smell became even more overpowering as we got closer to the place. The main spa was built in an arabesque style...it was pretty ... read more
April 18th 2009
7th day - Friday It was Lent and Friday so of course we had a fish fry that evening. We woke up at the crack of 9:30AM and headed with Sara to her fave pescheria (fish shop). We ordered orata fish for the main meal, mussels, and clams. We also went to another shop to order some additional delicacies that were not available at the first place for mostly…ahem, legal reasons. At the second shop, we ordered various items in the crudo (to be eaten raw) category. The first was schiume (sea foam), these are fish hatchlings, it looks like goopy grayish paste when they are all together. Next was some kind of sea snail, some pied di capra (goat’s foot) which I really can’t define for you, suffice it to say that it is some ... read more
April 16th 2009
5th day - Wednesday Oh glorious day! This has been a treat we have been looking forward to for quite some time. The big questions were: Will the asino (donkey) meat be available? Will our friends Sam and Terri like the meat? Will we drown in a plethora of ass jokes, puns, and plain old jackassery? We started out late yet again (this was a pattern that we just couldn't seem to break). We dropped off Sam at one of the gyms close to Sara's apartment as he wanted to get in a workout. With Sara in tow, she took us to the butcher of equine and asino meat. Stepping into the macelleria (butcher shop) we noted the difference in the odor between beef and the equine meat. Happily there was asino meat at hand and ... read more
April 16th 2009
6th day - Thursday Today we got up late yet again. It was raining hard and it was dam-p coldish...hee hee hee. No sense in getting out of bed too early! Today's goal was to go to Lecce, do some sightseeing, find an internet point, and take care of a problem with Sam's phone. We departed for Lecce hopeful for a break in the weather and upon arrival it was still raining and everything was closed up for the afternoon break, doh! So we went to a local mall to see if we could resolve some of these issues and wait for the weather to improve - it did! We found what appeared to be the only public phone in the mall and Sam contacted his phone company/European division. Meanwhile Beth and I went looking for ... read more
April 15th 2009
4th day -Tuesday We slept in until noon; apparently there is such a thing as too much wine and good food, but we are on vacation so no harm, no foul. We headed out to one of the local malls to shop for some essentials. It became readily apparent that the color purple was the new black of the season. Virtually every display window had their mannequins swathed in that color. Many of the locals could be seen wearing varying shades of purple. I didn’t find anything in purple that suited me and I couldn’t talk Sam into any purple pants or shirts. I figured that he could be a trendsetter back in Boise, but he was having none of that. We did stop by at Decathalon to look for a fleece layer for Beth. This ... read more
April 13th 2009
2nd day - Sunday We arrived in Rome slightly ahead of schedule. In fact Beth and I woke up from our sleep with only an hour remaining in our flight. Yep, you gotta love that. The only major stressor was that our friends' bags did not make it to Rome. Good luck prevailed and there was an extremely helpful individual (we think he was some kind of supervisor) that assisted Sam & Terri. The supervisor type guy pointed out a help desk for us to seek assistance. He came by after a few minutes to check out the situation. This was a good thing because when we arrived at the desk some poor guy was being lambasted by the woman behind the desk. He was Italian and they were arguing with each other, the exchange ended ... read more
April 13th 2009
3rd day - Monday We bounded out of bed without any hint of jet lag and got ready for our road trip. We follow a flight day routine that insures we don’t suffer any jet lag. Part of the routine is to take a homeopathic supplement called Anti-Jet Lag. We’ve been doing this ever since our first trip together in 2003 and it seems to work for us. We had to go back to the airport to get our rental car and that worked out nicely with having to retrieve our friends' late bags. As we headed to the airport it was a disconcerting thing not knowing whether the bags were going be there or not; they were...whew! We drove out of the airport and I promptly missed the turnoff to head south...doh! The remainder of ... read more
