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Italy2 - till 18 May
La dolce vita is a lot more apt than I ever believed. I am prepared, after just a couple of weeks in Italy, to offer a preliminary conclusion that Italians have the work-life balance sorted out pretty well. Take the opening hours of shops as an example - and please don't take this as gospel because we haven't got it straight yet - shops close between 1300 and either 1500 or 1600every day on which they are actually open. But some shops stay open during these hours. The ones that close will normally open again between, say, 1600 and 1900. But post offices don't. They close at 1300 and that seems to be it for the day. Large hypermercato (hypermarkets to those who only speak English) in most places are open from about 0900 to about 1900 and are also open all weekend, except in those cities where they are not or where they don't open until 1400 on Mondays. Shops within hypermercato are normally open when the building is open, but any number may be closed at some time. Clothes shops are not normally open before 10.00 am. Hairdressers seem to be open all
of the time, except when Patricia is looking for one. Service stations are generally open at, what I might carefully call 'normal' hours, and some automatic ones stay open 24 ore (hours), but you need to be able to work out how to use them.
But perhaps 'the sweet life' (as la dolce vita is translated by our little dictionary) does not extend to tradespeople. They don't seem to get the afternoon siesta or long lunch. They have a sit down for lunch and then back into it after an hour or so. They do knock off reasonably early though. Most seem to have packed up well and truly by 1600, probably so they can go shopping.
Drivers are definitely not immune from the need to maintain a work/life balance. Italians enjoy themselves on the road. Not for them the mindless sitting in traffic waiting for a break so they can overtake. They might decide to simply make a new lane in the middle of the road. There is plenty of room on some roads. Not so much on others. Or they might decide that they need to park. So they do. Double parking? Not too much of
Camp
Note the new tall tent, complete with vestibule that serves as protection from cold weathera problem as long as you put your flashers on. We have seen whole streets where the cars are 2 deep at the curb and sometimes 3, reducing a comfortable 4 lane road to one skinny one with opposing traffic weaving in and out of the gaps. Even on the expressway the joy of life - which you can only really experience when death is a clear possibility - ignore the barriers and flags and whatnot and cavort through the roadworks. That way you can pass whole lines of the rule obeying traffic with just a little risk that the reason for the roadworks is that there is a bloody great hole in the bridge.
So far, mistakes don't seem to worry Italian drivers unduly. You muck it all up and end up heading the wrong way up a one way street, or something similar, they deal with it. No histrionics - I stress, so far. Speed is fun and so they seem to have a very relaxed approach to speed limits. We see 'Rallentare' signs and immediately slow down. Can cause accidents that can. No one actually expects you to do what you are told. I have learnt
To the Puglia Coast
From near Leuca, over the olive groves to the sea to operate at at least 10 km/h over the limit at all times and am constantly overtaken. Always prepared to sneak a break, drivers here don't seem to get upset when they are cut off. Just a shrug and even a smile and a wave. It is simply not possible to abide being behind anything at all. They will always try to get into that small space you have left in front. A bloke towing a van reckons that his major difficulty is when the little cars try to dive in between his car and his van.
After all of the stories I have heard I will say that driving here is not really bad at all. Things become a little difficult at times when traffic is heavy in the centre of cities, but why are we there anyway? (The city centre is a handy place to tell TomTom to navigate to). Otherwise you simply have to be alert for driving practices that are, perhaps, more flamboyant than in other countries we have travelled through. You see drivers routinely doing things that would get you chased and smacked in the head in Australia and all that happens is a
Ciolo 1
Walking down to the sea cave, which you can't really see unless you're in a boat bit of a shrug or a smile and wave.
The language is dramatic, the people seem to love a bit of drama and, for much of its length, the Puglia, or Apulia, Coast provides drama aplenty. We have moved down from Ravenna down the coast normally taking the smaller roads through the villages and along the coast. But you have to get a fair way into the Puglia region before the scenery really picks up. The area around Bari and Foggia which are both included in most of the literature about the Puglia Coast - Bari is headlined as the 'capital' - is not all that flash. Foggia, in particular, is a bit of a hole. Interestingly, we encountered the South African practice there of young men offering to direct us to a car park and then seeking an amount of money to 'protect' our car. All of the young blokes were African so I suppose they were engaging in a practice that enabled them to make money in other places. We didn't hang around the area.
We stayed for a few nights at Costa Merlata, about 30 kms north of Brindisi, and explored the area. The coast
Ciolo 3
Taking photos of the rocks near the sea cave is pretty rough and rocky and not all that prepossessing. Someone has tried to create beaches of a sort by bulldozing the rocks and creating large slipways, in which some have had sand placed to create a 'beach'. It works. They were always packed with people sun baking. You do have to be keen though.
Ostuni was the hit of the stay here. We noticed a white city up on a hill some distance away on our road over near the coast. When we finally made it to the guide book and then looked it up on the net it transpired that Ostuni used to be the main city of the region and housed the local gentry. It has apparently always been white and remains that today. Lovely place. Skinny little streets, most houses white and some nice churches with the bishop's house on the top of the hill alongside that of the old duke. A place well worth a visit for an afternoon at least.
We have now decided to delay the Greek excursion probably until closer to the end of summer or even later. We found that the need for an International Drivers Permit is actually
Ciolo 2
A more difficult part of the climb - no steps at this bit a legal requirement there, as it is in a number of other countries. We normally would not worry too much about this but, given that there are Greeks upset with the EU at the moment and given that we are driving a cute little French car with French plates, we decided to be as legal as possible when we hit the place.
So we will continue around the 'boot'.
Camping places are just a bit difficult to find at this time of the year in Italy. Most of the camping grounds close down for the winter and don't open until either May or June. They clearly make their money from the big holiday season that happens in June, July and August. Some advertise that they are open all year but close up anyway. Others don't advertise their presence at all. We found the campground at Gagliano Del Capo after spending a couple of hours winding along the coast dropping in on every place we could find. Gagliano del Capo is about where the high heel would start if Italy was a woman's - or Texan's - leg. It is a nice spot, and when they get it
Ciolo4
The steps to another one of the many caves in the rocks all into working order will be a very good place to go for a longer holiday. For us, it was pretty empty and great.
On the trip down to the 'heel' we weren't particularly impressed by the coast, so much so that we cut inland to swing through Lecce which was supposed to have a lot of interesting baroque architecture. It probably does have a lot of interesting buildings but they are a bugger to pick out if you are driving. The traffic through Lecce convinced one of us that it was not a place to hang around. We headed south for the coast.
They have a Gallipoli here that is a lot larger than the one in Turkey - which of course is not even a town at all. All of the camp grounds around the town were closed so we moved on.
The road from Leuca, near Gagliano del Capo - which is really only a small village even though it has a campground that was actually open - through Ciolo up to Otranto exposed us to the true beauty of the Puglian coast. I have given hints in other posts about where to find
Wildflowers
Just another sample of this common sight us if we simply drop out of sight. This area is another contender. Here we have terraces cut and built into the cliffs and hillsides that can take just one olive tree, impossibly beautiful rock strewn cliffs with some very nice houses cut into clefts. This is a place you could live very nicely and very easily. And if you are looking for a place to retire to then it wont cost you the earth - yet. But it will soon I will wager. Prices seem to pretty good for reasonable properties at the moment but there is a lot of development underway and it will not be long before prices will increase. (This is not a paid advertisement but probably should be)
The villages around here are, of course, all very close together but they are still villages with a strong community feel. We found the place very comfortable and easy to take. Walking around we attracted attention, I suspect mainly because we were some of the early tourists to hit the place and possibly because we were walking but people were always prepared to offer a bongiorno and a smile.
Taranto is up the 'instep' a
Olive grove
Standard agricultural shot from Apulia, these trees not as old as many we saw little. A big industrial center without much to recommend it to us but we found a place to camp at a beach a few kms south. A wild shore line on the day we arrived but calmed down to what seems to be the normal state of the Ionian Sea the next day.
Alberobello is about an hour's drive from Taranto into the hinterland through miles of olive groves. It is significant for the use of 'trulli' as houses and churches. You can see what I am talking about in the photos. Well worth a look if you are in the area. They started building trulli because they could construct serviceable houses without the use of mortar. Apparently, the local landlord didn't have approval to have so many tenants so the houses they lived in had to be capable of being quickly dismantled. These days they are everywhere and are nicely mortared and plastered, but still impressive.
Matera is one of Italy's best UNESCO world heritage sites. It is the home of the Sassi people or the area in which they lived was called Sassi - not sure which. These people lived in caves and houses carved out
Companion planting
Broad beans and wild poppies in the olive grove - at Gagliano del Capo of rock in a gorge about 45 km in from the coast. Originally, the places were gouged out of the limestone by the weather and relatively early Christians. They seemed to have lived there in the 12th to the 14th centuries. The area has been occupied though since Paleolithic times. The later inhabitants were shepherds and farmers. The conditions in which they lived inspired a writer to describe them as 'Italy's shame' in 1946. Their living conditions were pretty horrific and the infant mortality rate was 50%. They were shifted out to new, clean but sterile houses in the 1950's after the intervention of the Italian President and the passage of a special law. These days you have to be rich to live in one of the rehabilitated houses. If you visit nothing else in Puglia and Basilicata then you should have a look at this place.
I did mention in a previous post that we had bought a larger and taller tent. We were a little worried that it might not stand up to wind and rain as well as our little one does. I can report that it has been tested and has come through without too
2 Mari
This spot is often photographed. It's where the Ionian and Adriatic Seas meet (at Leuca, at the tip of the heel) many scars. In Gagliano we had a decent storm one night that boasted 60 and 70 km/h winds and plenty of rain. It kept me awake from approximately 1.46am to 5.30 am when the wind died down a bit. A couple of pegs came loose and had to be nailed back in and reinforced but that is about all, other than the noise and the lightning of course. Then we had a hail storm while we were out a couple of days later. The tent again sailed through unscathed. Most nights here are not all that warm and it is nice to be able to sit inside, sort of, particularly if there is a bit of a wind blowing. So the tent is a success story, although it is still too damned heavy.
And we will leave it there for this week. Lately, we have been more serious about slowing things down. We have a tendency to pick up speed and spend time diving from one place to another but we may just have that under control at the moment. That said, we intend now to head for the 'toe' and then onto Sicily so that we can see
Gagliano del Capo
Heading back to the camp along a back road. Stone walls and prickly pears around the olive groves it before the expected hordes of summer visitors. After that it will be up to the Amalfi Coast, Naples, Rome, Firenze etc, etc. The list goes on.
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Andrew
non-member comment
Good to see you're taking your time
We've seen nowhere near as much of Italy as you but can fully understand the appeal. Keep an eye out for Fazios in Sicily (or the Aeolian Islands to be more precise). Now, the risk is that once you've visited Ireland as well, we may have to come a long way to ever see you again!!