Advertisement
May, glorious May, the month of my birthday (which was spent relaxing in a lovely campsite run by a nice Dutch couple in the hills of Rimmini near the town of Perticara). However, before then we explored the “heel” of Italy which consists of the mouth-filling regions of Calabria, Basilicata and Puglia. The first highlight of the month was the town of Matera and a two night stay at a peaceful campsite in the Murgia Matera NP which was only a short walk over the plateau to the gorge across which there are fabulous views of the old town and the ancient houses built into the rock. These houses were a qhetto and still occupied until the 1950’s when the people were forcibly relocated. We also had fine views of at least 30 Lesser Kestrel which come here every year to nest. In the early morning they can be seen hovering in large numbers over the fields on the plateau. On day two our campsite host drove us around to Matera and dropped us off so we could hike back via the gorge. We had lunch in a local Osteria with no name, no menu and no other customers, but by
heck the food and the service was good.
Brian has suffered bad hayfever again this year so sometimes we move on a bit more quickly than planned just to get away from what sets him off. Other times it is just because there is not much of interest to hold us in an area which was a bit like that down the west coast of Puglia. It is mostly agricultural land covered in vines, olives and crops. Our second highlight was the area around Alborebello where they have quaint conical roofed houses called “trulli”. One whole section of the town consists of them and this is whitewashed tourism central until the buses all leave then it becomes a pleasant and interesting place to wander around. We also took a walk around the countryside on a quiet dirt roads to discover true “trulli” houses on the farms, much more authentic and picturesque.
Further up the east coast we tested out just how far a motorhome can go on a seemingly empty fuel tank. We were aiming for a campsite on the coast after a few hours of motorway driving in high winds. We thought we could fill up just
before the campsite but when we got there it was to find the station closed down so we thought, okay, Manfredonia was only 7km past the entrance to the campsite but we couldn’t get there as the road was closed so we had to drive a nail biting detour of 20km to get to the next fuel station. We reckon we had less than a litre of fuel left in the tank by the time we pulled in!
Our third highlight was spending a few days exploring the Majella and the Monte Sibilini national parks. We previously hiked here back on our winter trip in 2004/5 and had fond (if cold) memories of it. We were not disappointed as these mountains have lots of lovely places to hike including a lovely gorge walk near Caramica Terme. We were a little taken back on waking one morning to find our route over the San Leonardo pass was covered with snow but it was too warm for it to cause a problem on the road as we drove over.
Our route continued north stopping to explore the old towns of Ascoli Piceno (where there was an antique fair to explore
but we kept our wallets in our pockets); Gubbio with its austere medieval architecture and the impressive fortress town of San Leo near San Marino (the worlds oldest principality). By late May we were back in the more affluent north of Italy where we enjoyed a couple of days soaking up the sights and atmosphere of Bologna and Padua, both having lovely arcaded streets. We visited a few motorhome dealers in the hope of buying a set of fitted internal screens for the cab windows like we had in Hamish. The standard price seemed to be about 650 euro but no one had them in stock until we got to Jolly Caravan near Padua and they just happened to have them in stock and on sale, so we got them for the very reasonable price of 395 euro. Brian had them fitted within a couple of days and they are so much better than the clip on blinds supplied with the van.
Our final highlight of this Italian sojourn was to spend a few days in the Dolomites doing a little walking, a lot of sightseeing in these incredibly beautiful ranges, and even managed to watch a section of
the Giro d'Italia on the climb up to Passo San Pellegrino. I am getting used to starting walks with Brian then leaving him behind at a certain point to read and await my return. His right knee is seriously slowing him down these days so as soon as the incline gets too steep he stops and I go on. The other day I went on up towards a high pass ploughing my way through slushy snow. It was not too bad except on the way down one of my sticks went in deep and got jammed in a rock just as I took a slide. The stick did it's job and stopped me but paid the price of bending severely in the bottom section. Fortunately Brian had found a bottom section on a walk some weeks earlier so was able to replace it for me!
Ciao Ciao for now, next stop - Croatia.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.155s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0341s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb