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Published: January 11th 2010
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Alright, we didn’t quite have time to finish our adventures in Apulia. So here we go again…
Even though we didn’t feel like we were doing a lot of “real” work around the property we rarely had a day off. We did small jobs around the property, cleaned the house, collected wood, or went on the sometimes all day adventures to town. On our one and only day off we were very excited to take a trip to the sea. The place where we stayed was far enough down the heel that we were smack in the middle of the Mediterranean and Adriatic Sea. We had yet to see any type of ocean or sea since we have been in Europe so when Cybill suggested we take the big red van for the day we jumped on it. Luckily we had a beautiful day for a stroll along the sea. We packed up the van and were joined by Olga and her cute puppy. We didn’t know really how to get to the beach or where a good spot was, luckily we had spent hours being lost in Fasano previously so we headed in that direction and quickly found
a road down to the sea. It was a rare warm, sunny, windless day which was a welcomed break from the cold windy rainy days we got about 5 out of 7 days of the week. We found a spot to park, piled out and began to explore. The spot we picked was beautiful; the coast was lined with rocky tide pools that went on for kilometers down the beach. There were also very neat ancient graves of all sizes that were carved into the rock along the coast probably from an old southern European civilization. We skipped around the rocks, explored the tide pools, watched the waves crash into the rocks, and bathed in the wonderful sun that we missed so much. We spent several hours at this location really enjoying the peacefulness of the ocean. Our growling bellies were what eventually tore us away from the beautiful coast realizing all we ate that day was a bit of muesli and some fruit.
Our meals by the way were less than what we had expected for a southern Italian household. We were lucky if we got 2 meals a day. Breakfast was usually the highlight of the
day, homemade muesli with fresh fruit from one of several markets in the area. Our favorite outdoor market was in a village called Martina Franca about a 15 minute drive from the trullo. This market was the biggest in the surrounding area and was hilariously full of anything your heart could desire. Where do I start? You could find indoor and outdoor plants, lighting fixtures and ceiling fans, any piece of new and used clothing, shoes, dress shirts and sweaters were in particular abundance. Emily even picked up a few used wool sweaters for a Euro or two each to stay warm in the bone chilling trullo. Also commonplace were couches, tables and chairs, and any craft supply you could need. Of course there was a plethora of food to choose from; every seasonal and local vegetable and fruit could be found and even some that traveled further distances including bananas. Also to be found was any type of salted fish, meat and cheese, around ten different marinated olive concoctions, nuts, grains, legumes, mushrooms, honey and even cakes and candy. It was a delight for the eyes, nose and even the ears as vendors constantly yelled out prices and beckoned
you to buy from there stand. This market was one of the highlights of the week.
Cybill was not big into variety with her cooking and really didn’t seem that into cooking although she always insisted on making her food. Cybill did not like any typical Italian cooking, apparently she got sick of it as a child, she didn’t even like tomatoes, can we say crazy! She was very into macrobiotic food. For her this meant, cooking without cutting up vegetables and cooking the same s**t with absolutely no spices whatsoever. For example, when she would make soup there would be a pot full of broth, some type of grain and uncut vegetables. Literally whole carrots, whole potatoes, beets, and onions maybe chopped in half and just thrown in the pot. So when you were served you didn’t get a mixture of vegetables, you got a potato, a beet and an onion that you had to try and cut up with your soup spoon. So weird! Other than the weird soups she would make very bland pasta dishes and grains with cauliflower almost every other day. She was crazy about soy sauce, so put no salt or any
other spices, and just plopped down a giant bottle of soy sauce for the only seasoning. A few times we were able to convince her to let us cook. We made what we thought was a nice simple stir fry with several chopped up veggies and usually quinoa. Wow! Cybill was just blown away with our cooking; it’s amazing what you can do with a little effort and some spices.
Cybill had a acquaintance in Cisternino that owned a really cool retro bar. Vittorio had been to the states many times and on his trips had picked up random pieces of furniture and retro decorations. The place had a great vibe, filled with pictures of artists from the 70’s including Sunny and Cher, Janis Joplin and others. It also had a great section of glass floor with pictures of people swimming underwater, a neat lounge area covered by a colorful tent like structure, and the ambiance was set by little cut outs along the walls filled with candles. It was a great place to hang out, and Vittorio treated us with the greatest hospitality.
A couple of weeks before Christmas we join Cybill on a trip
to Ostuni as she was to get a birthday present for her son. Ostuni is a beautiful city situated on a hilltop with most all of the buildings being white. We enjoyed our 2 hours walking around the city and exploring some of the local shops. Ostuni is the one of the main tourist town in that area of Apulia and we were told it explodes with people during the summer months, you can easily find the beaches lined with campers and tents as people just stay and live there for the warm months of the year.
Even thought our time in Apulia wasn’t as productive as we had hoped, we still enjoyed the experience and can find satisfaction in the work we accomplished and the experiences we learned from. One very important lesson we learned was how to NOT make progress in restoring your property. Organization is key in all aspects of restoration, food production, self sufficiency and living. Complete organization may be impossible but at least a smidgen is necessary. Apulia is such a gorgeous area, olive trees as far as the eye can see and with the sea surrounding the peninsula I can only imagine
how much more amazing it is during the warmer months. We hope these last two installments were not too unbearable to read, we hope to have mostly positive remembrances, but have used the blog to vent a little. The next entry will be Christmas in Naples, a short but sweet 4 days of the most amazing Italian hospitality.
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