Gravity “Monopoli Style”

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Today we’ve got a six hour train ride south along what looks like about 80% of the length of Italy’s Adriatic Coast to the town of Monopoli in Puglia. We thought the 50,000 odd sunlounges along the 15 kms of Rimini’s beach was a lot, but it looks like that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Today’s trip’s a bit over 500 kms, and we’re hugging the coast for most of the first half. It’s virtually all sandy beaches, and while the concentration of beach furniture mightn't be quite in the same league as it was in Rimini, it’s still substantial. I can’t help myself from doing the maths. Even if the concentration’s only say twenty percent of that in Rimini, that’s still another around 150,000 sunlounges on top of the 50,000 in Rimini, so 200,000 all up. Two hundred thousand sunlounges, that’s ridiculous! And that’s only this bit of Italy, what about the rest? I‘m sure they need to replaced fairly frequently, so the obvious questions now are who makes them and where can we buy some shares.

Two other things stand out about today’s train trip.

Just about the first announcement we hear over the PA system whenever we’re leaving a station is about how to lodge a complaint against the train company - lots of detail about how to log onto the website, or if you don’t like that, where to go to get a form. This seems to take a lot of priority over other matters that I would have thought might be of slightly more importance to travellers, such as for example what the next stop is …. Or how to operate the vending machines - if you can’t do that you run the very real risk of starving to death long before you get anywhere near a complaint form.

It’s also a bit hard not to notice the number of heavily armed policemen on board; there are three in our carriage alone. Issy thinks they’re on their way to arrest a dangerous criminal and haul him back to Rimini for interrogation. I hope for his sake he didn’t commit the heinous crime of trying to set up his own sunlounge on a bit of “non-free” beach. I think they’ve been posted here to guard the vending machines. There were two of them watching me very closely during my six failed attempts to buy a packet of chips … well I think it was a packet of chips - they looked a bit like chips on the packaging, but the writing was all in Italian, so I suppose now I’ll never know.

The train suddenly lurches to a halt out in the middle of nowhere, and some very concerned looking rail staff then march purposefully through the carriage on what looks like serious business. Issy thinks that maybe this is where they’re holding her dangerous criminal. If so I would have thought that was more the domain of the police, but it seems nothing’s going to distract those guys from the critical task of preventing heists from the vending machines. My beloved looks a bit disappointed when the rail staff come back without a handcuffed suspect in tow.

We reach Monopoli, and get off the train, or in my case fall off the train - I don’t think I look all that dignified sprawled on all fours on the platform next to the suitcase that dragged me down the steps with it. Next up it’s Issy’s turn to experience gravity “Monopoli style”. As she goes to pay the taxi driver, her glasses fall off and drop through a grate in the gutter without touching the sides; I don’t think we’ll be seeing them again. We’ve only been here about ten minutes and Monopoli‘s already feeling like a hazardous place.

We meet our apartment owner Enzo, and he shows us up to our first floor bedroom and then on up again to our rooftop terrace. We’re right on the waterfront, with excellent views down over a small sandy beach and the old town walls. If this is the price we have to pay for a bit of danger I think we might be able to cope.

We head out in search of supplies and discover the supermarket with the world’s narrowest aisles. It’s peak hour and someone’s forgotten to put up the one-way signs. I quickly find myself in a Mexican standoff with a fellow shopper. We’re both carrying baskets, so passing’s clearly out of the question … and it still would be even if neither of us were carrying anything. Confrontations like this must happen here several times per minute, so I hope for everyone’s sake that not too many of them turn violent.

We go wandering in search of dinner. The whole town looks impossibly cute - ancient buildings connected by a network of narrow alleyways, surrounded by even more ancient looking walls. I get goosebumps as we pause to listen to a four piece band on a tiny balcony belting out an excellent rendition of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”. We dine in the shadows of the walls of an ancient castle … well I’m sure there would be shadows if the sun was still up. I’m pretty sure we’re going to like it here.

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Comments

[RENanDREW]

Monopoli
I've never heard of Monopoli, and it sounds lovely so far. Well, apart from pushing you down train steps and the theft of glasses! :)