Where are you going in Le Marche? Anxious to read along with your travels.

just signing in for the ride.

I hear corks being popped!

Buon viaggio! I look forward to hearing about your Italian adventures.

Looking forward to this--I heard they have a lot of wine in Italy

Can't wait to hear about the latest adventure!

Yippee! Let's go.

yeah role reversal time- looking forward to it!

I'm with you in spirit and signing on for the virtual tour. Ciao!

Sweet! Looking forward to your adventures!

Looking forward to this. Thanks in advance for sharing your adventures.

Modeen we are staying here: http://www.latavolamarche.com/html/

Bikerscott is working on installments 1 as we speak, to be posted shortly. I will post day 1 pics when he is done.

We absolutely love Bologna and would highly recommend it...more to come!!

Glad you are all along for the ride!!

Well, I thought I posted here earlier...

I know you guys will do it up right! I look forward to tagging along!

Italy 2012

Day One – Travel to Bologna

Why we do this to ourselves I’ll never understand. We’d booked our flight to leave from Gatwick Airport at 6:40 in the morning for Bologna, which meant that the airport transfer car had to pick us up at 4:15 in the morning, which meant getting up at 3:30. Every bloody time we do this we say we’ll never book another flight that early, but here we are yet again.

After some confusion from the driver in finding our building, we were off. Both of us were exhausted, having only had 4 hours of sleep (and me having polished off the last of a bottle of wine before bed). We got to Gatwick just after they opened, walking through the doors at about 5:20am. The queues were incredible – we’d never seen anything like it at Gatwick. Fortunately we’d checked in online the day before so didn’t have to go through that hassle, we just joined the queue for the bag drop.

The EasyJet people seemed to have actually taken the 5am rush into account and had every position manned at the counters so half an hour later we’d dropped our bags and had gone through security. We had just enough time for me to unsuccessfully look for the toilets and for Jamie to run to the Boots Pharmacy to pick up the bits and bobs we’d (I’d) forgotten to pack (Imodium, Zantac, and toothpaste – all essentials for a foodie with a mildly sensitive stomach and an adventurous disposition).

After paying for the essentials we rushed down to our gate to stake our claim to seats closest to the boarding zone. EasyJet operates on a stadium seating concept – first come, first pick of the seats on the plane. I’m not sure what this saves in costs, but it makes the queue to get onto the plane a lot more exciting. Everyone sits in the waiting area watching each other, no one willing to make the first move, but no one willing to let someone else in ahead. Inevitably someone reaches down for a tissue in their bag or moves their leg and someone else misinterprets this for a move to the front of the queue, and the entire waiting area erupts into a mad rush forward.

So we were pretty much at the front of the queue and got prime seats one row back from the front of the plane. Jamie insists on having a window seat because she doesn’t like to share, which means I always get the middle seat. I keep hoping for a supermodel-type to pick the aisle seat next to me, but it always ends up being an older flatulent overweight man. Go figure.

I slept pretty much the entire flight, passing out during takeoff (a first for me I think, normally I doze off just after). Jamie slept for a half hour from what she has said, but being unconscious at the time I am unable to validate this claim. As far as I’m aware, it was an uneventful flight, arriving at the right airport at about the right time with all luggage aboard, all important qualities of a successful flight as far as I’m concerned.

We went through passport control and picked up our hire car – a Hyundai rather than the Fiat we’d booked. The main difference, as far as I can tell, is that Hyundai choose not to install engines in their cars. We had strict instructions to NOT DRIVE INTO THE HISTORICAL CENTRE of Bologna, so programmed the sat nav carefully and set off.

Gazza (our sat nav) occasionally has a twisted sense of humour and enjoys sending us down tiny alleys and backroads, but I think understood the emphasis of the caps in our instructions and guided us successfully to the B&B. We couldn’t find the parking, so drove around the corner and found a corner to tuck the car into. Jamie jumped out and ran to the B&B to find out where we should leave the car – the owner couldn’t figure out why we hadn’t simply double parked in the middle of the road right in front of his door, as all Italians would do.

He actually came all the way down to the car with Jamie to guide me back to the B&B and showed me where to leave the car in the middle of the road. He suggested that maybe I should say with it while he brought the bags up with Jamie, but seemed somewhat sanguine about the illegality of the situation. To be fair, the several police cars that went whizzing by also seemed to take it in their stride, so when in Rome, as it were…

After checking in, we changed from our London jeans and jumpers which were appropriate for the torrential rain and dismal temperatures this June for the shorts, t-shirts and sandals appropriate for the early Italian summer. At this point, the curry we’d had for dinner the night before was making its presence known and I was feeling a bit of pressure. The bathrooms in the B&B are generously proportioned and I took full advantage of the facilities. As many Italian bathrooms are, this one came equipped with a bidet. I’d always been hesitant to use one, being unsure of the protocols and procedures, but thought I’d give it a whirl.

I learned a very important lesson in bidet use – always, and I mean ALWAYS, let the water run for a bit to regulate the temperature before assuming the position. I, in my excitement for the new adventure, jumped the gun and lowered myself into optimum position. At this point, the hot water caught up, and the best way I can describe what happened next is that I boiled the calamari. Seriously, check the water temperature, and then check it again. This is NOT a mistake you want to make even once.

After calming the scalding down a bit, we walked into the centre of town. It didn’t take long for us to take to the city. Long avenues of porticos, cafes spilling into the street, a blissful lack of crowds and hordes of tourists, good weather, and excellent architecture – all the things we look for. We wandered around for a bit before settling in for lunch at a restaurant which had been recommended as having typical Bolognese food – Restaurant da Nello (or something similar), just off the main square. It was affordable, very tasty, and we were able to eat outside – three things we often struggle with in London (especially the last).

After lunch we spent a few hours wandering around the city centre, taking photos and window shopping (I’ve decided that I’m not a big fan of Rolexes, but quite like Phillipe Pateks, for example). Bologna is an excellent city for tourists, in that there don’t seem to be a lot of them about. Everyone is quite friendly, it’s clean in the centre of town at least, not too expensive (although certainly not cheap by any stretch). The only strange thing is the number of young people about, but it is a university town so that makes sense I suppose, even if it does make me feel old.

A few hours of walking about works up a pretty good thirst, so we found a nice little street bistro for a bottle of wine (and two bottles of water – it was up over 30 Celsius and we were feeling a bit dehydrated). We enjoyed a couple more hours chatting over chilled wine and watching people, one of our favourite holiday pastimes. The afternoon seemed to fly by, and before we knew it, it was after 5pm.

We did a bit more wandering, exploring more stores and streets we’d missed before, coming across some sort of communist demonstration (at least that’s what it looked like – a bit hard to tell as none of it was in English). There seemed to be some sort of cultural thing going on this weekend with lectures and talks going on all over the town, the protest seemed to be somehow related. Ahh, the ineffable mysteries of politics in another country and another language.

Dinner was at Bistro 18 on via Clavature (number 18, either an amazing coincidence or a rather spectacular lack of imagination in restaurant naming). We’d heard good things about the place and were quite excited.

The menu was confusing – there seemed to be a set menu listed, but the items on it were all a la carte. Plus, there was an entire a la carte section. We ordered from both, and this is where the confusion started. Jamie ordered foie gras from the main a la carte menu, and then the tortellini in brodo (tortellini in a broth, better than it sounds). As I was still looking at the wine list, she ordered chicken galantine, followed by Tagliatelli Bolognese, and then some sort of escalope for me. Her giving my order I think is what initially caused the chaos.

We’re not sure why, as we’d both ordered an antipasto, but Jamie’s foie gras and tortellini arrived at the same time, accompanied by a complete lack of my chicken. We tried to explain to the waiter that we both wanted our antipasta at the same time, but this seemed be a bridge too far. He left and sent in reinforcements. Our lack of Italian and his lack of English proved to be as big a stumbling block as one might expect. We eventually got the message across, and he left with the tortellini.

Some time after Jamie finished her foie gras, my chicken arrived. It was tasty, but a bit odd. The rest of dinner arrived in the order expected, and was much more filling that either of us expected. By the end, I was feeling a bit uncomfortable and regretting the final course just a bit. We paid the bill and wandered back the long way to the B&B for a final glass of bubbly and an early night.

well, what a start.

perhaps bidets should come with a government health warning! personally i tend to use them for washing the smalls so the temperature isn't quite so crucial.

glad that you survived to tell the tale, and looking forward to the next instalment.

And some pics from Day 1:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151814495225462.864934.805595461&type=1&l=c1b3332cbe

Just wanted to give a quick report on our fabulous B&B: www.anticaresidenzadazeglio.it We are paying €110 for a basic room and a car parking spot for the night. The room is HUGE, breakfast looked delicious this morning and the hosts could not be better - fabulous deal!!!!

Ok off to bed - tomorrow we hit up Ravenna and the mosiacs adn end up at our farm stay in Le Marche!

Enjoy!

jamikims - the b&B looks delightful.


which room are you in? i love the way that they are all described as having "ample" dimensions!

Bravo!

As always, you are so fun to follow! I hope the calamari will recover. We have a TV show here called Around the World in 80 Plates and they were just in Bologna and the tortellini in broth was a big thing!

Looking forward to more!

Woohoo!!! Another fun trip with Jamikins and BikerScott!

Looking forward to it!

Am I missing something? I didn't see the B&B in the 19 images that came up with the link.

I loved the pictures, expecially the last one, the portico at night. And Scott's descriptions have me howling.

Nice! More, please.

Southwest Airlines used to be the same way. Then they instituted and A, B, anc C list and respective spaces for getting in line!

Love a nice, dry wit - what a great way to see the world ! I'd wish you to have a great trip - but how could you not? Thanks for taking us along for the ride!

Good morning!! Annhig - we are in the blue room...have seen the other rooms and they are all ample! They are huge!!

Irishface - the b&b link is just below the link to the pics...

Glad you are enjoying so far...!

ooh exciting, i am loving your report. Love finishing off the day with a glass of bubbly!! Hope the calamari is recovering!!!

we did our own little jamie oliver style dinner "jamie does italy" last night, his vongole, tirimisu and prosecco.....i was feeling quite chuffed (the tirimisu worked and was honestly the best i have tasted!!) but now am jealous of not being in Bologna!!

On other thing.........

<<It was affordable, very tasty, and we were able to eat outside – three things we often struggle with in London (especially the last)>>>

..........we have found a place in london that is great for this. Its called Bar Remo just off Regent street on Princes street. It is our little slice of italy in london (even had the big projector showing italian TV football station-which i would normally hate, but here it feels in place!)

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g186338-d2298216-Reviews-Bar_Remo-London_England.html

tasty-big tick!!
affordable-big tick
outside eating- medium tick, about four or five tables so get there early.

Its seriously great for late night last minute place or for a nice lunch. We only go there if we have been out with friends and fancy something tasty on way home at like 10pm when it is still buzzing and the service is very good.

Jamie. thanks for the link. I saw it today and felt stupid for not getting it earlier.

glad to see no calamari pictures.

Delightful to follow you both again as you travel. When I saw the title of this thread, and that you were the OPs, I felt almost the same pleasure I feel when on my way to the airport

And so far,the TR and the photos do not disappoint. Grazie.

Thanks for coming along for the ride! We are living Le Marche but unfortunately have no Internet access at the farm...Scott is still writing but we need to cone into town to post - just On the iPhone now. Will try to update again Wednesday morning after our day if cooking tomorrow!!!

Ciao!!!

Can't wait to read more!!

Thanks jamie and scott for the very fun distraction of your wonderful trip report! I'll pop back in when I have a chance again.

Really enjoying your posts, Jamikins and Scott, you describe everything in a way that makes it really interesting, and funny at the same time. Sorry for your bidet experience, I'm not a fan of it either, now I won't trust one for sure!!!

Now that you have described your short stay in Bologna, I can't wait to visit the city soon, we are often so close and always end up skipping it.

Looking forward to reading more.

Jumping in for the ride. Looking forward to reading more of your Italian adventure!

>>washing the smalls<<

You'd never find a guy admitting to this! LOL

>>washing the smalls<<

You'd never find a guy admitting to this! LOL>>

why on earth not? is it unmanly to want to have clean underwear?

are you saying you don't wash your undies, or just that you wouldn't admit to it?

Umm, annhig, I think he was referring to a different kind of 'smalls' if you get my drift.

My favorite trip reporters!! Cant wait for more!! (And to look at your pictures at home... or perhaps on my phone - dang restrictions on webpages at work!!)

gomiki - how thick am I.

thanks for the explanation!

Haha Annhig!!!

Just popping in while we have wifi with our delicious wine!! Cooking class yesterday was amazing and the countryside here is just stunning - good food, lOvely people, sigh...

Unfortunately this rural paradise lacks connectivity haha so I am on my iPhone again and I think the soonest we willbe able to post using the laptop may be a couple days away...

Scott wants to reassure everyone that the calamri is fine with no lasting consequences haha!!

Happy Wednesday everyone!!

So nice of you to make time to post on Fodors during your vacation Jamikins.

annhig - I had the same thoughts as you regarding the "smalls." Course, sometimes I'm not "the brightest bulb in the pack."

gomiki got it. ;^)

Happy days - finally we have wifi!

So a lot has happened since we left off...we've toured famous mosaics, cooked some amazing food, drank a lot of wine (let's be honest) and seen some very pretty towns and villages. But we are only halfway done...


Day Two – To Le Marche

The bed at the B&B, while foam, turned out to be quite hard. We both have relatively good sleeps, but both woke with sore backs – fortunately mine worked itself out fairly quickly, but Jamie whinged about a crick in hers pretty much all day.

Breakfast included a few pastries fresh from the bakery that morning, really good cappuccinos, and fruit juice. Of course the sun shining through the open door in the sitting room with the smell of the jasmine plant down stairs wafting through helped quite a bit, both with our concern about our backs and our outlook for the day.

Our plans included packing our bags and driving pretty much all day, so we weren’t in a particular rush. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast before going back to our room and getting our things together. The owner of the B&B kindly helped us down to our car and waited while we backed out (in the narrow space, not the easiest task, especially in a new car as I couldn’t see either the front or back really). Gazza was worth his weight in gold and got us out of Bologna with no major hassles – we were away on the A14 headed south towards Rome and La Marche.

We’d decided an hour detour wasn’t too far out of our way, so made a side trip to Ravenna. Advice received suggested that we park at the train station, which we found without much drama. Even better was finding a parking spot just up the road, which turned out to be free, as it was Sunday. Despite my OCD in relation to cars and the locking thereof, we secured Giancarlo (the car) and walked into the centre of Ravenna.

The town itself isn’t actually that big, and even though it is the middle of June, what I would expect as prime tourist season, it wasn’t busy at all. Hardly any shops were open (which is normal for a Sunday), but the hordes of tourists were conspicuous in their absence.

Ravenna is known for its Byzantine mosaics scattered throughout a few churches in the city. We walked to the largest, the Basilica di San Vitale to buy our €9.50 tickets to the Basilica and four other churches/baptisteries with the famous mosaics.

I was surprised with the beauty and craftsmanship of them, despite having seen photos before – the pictures hadn’t prepared me for the size or intricacy of the works – entire walls and ceilings were covered in tiny tiles, all perfectly positioned and coloured. It looked like paintings, only it was all in stone – I certainly wouldn’t have the patience to put it all together.

It was hot. The signs we saw showed the temperature pushing 33 Celsius, but it felt hotter than that in the city centre. I can’t image what it would have been like with crowds. We wandered through the four sites and were suitably impressed with the mosaics – definitely worth a side-trip to see them. At this point, it was after noon and we were getting a bit hungry, so we stopped at one of the few restaurants open in Ravenna on a Sunday afternoon for what turned out to be quite a good lunch. I’d tell you what the name of the place was, but I don’t remember, and quite honestly it wasn’t good enough for a recommendation so we’ll leave it at that.

We walked back to the car, which I’d managed to position such that it was in the shade all day and not scorching hot as we’d expected. Again, Gazza directed us out of town and we were back on track for our final destination of the day – La Tavola Marche.

It took another two hours of driving to reach it, the last 20 minutes down a mostly dirt road interspersed with small sections of really bad tarmac. The potholes and swerving around were worth it though – we came around the final corner to find a big stone building on a hill overlooking a little valley and the road. We parked the car, got our suitcases out and walked into the central area to find absolutely nobody home.

After poking around for a while to confirm that our welcoming committee was truly absent, we did the only reasonable thing we could – we pulled together two loungers and sat at the side of the pool, soaking in the hot sun for 10 minutes until Ashley, one of the owners, arrived.

It turned out that a pair of ladies staying at the B&B had left for a walk in the hills early that morning, with a plan to return by 4pm at the latest. It was almost 6 by the time we got to the place and Jason, the other owner, had decided that two hours late was a bit too much, so had jumped in his car to scout out the route as much as he could. Ashley, unaware of the impending drama, had been out running some errands.

We arrived right in the middle of all of this, and when Jason got back it was decided that a call to the carbineiri was in order. Ashley got on the phone with a worried Jason and the husband of one of the errant wanders looking on – as she was explaining the predicament, who casually saunters down the drive but the two ladies.

Apparently they’d misheard Ashley’s instructions that morning – evidently “walk until you are tired, then turn around and come home” turned into “walk until the trail ends, then turn around and come home.” Unfortunately the trail ends 10kms away in the village San Angelo in Vado, a 20km round trip over some pretty rustic trails through the mountains for them.

Much relief for all concerned and their cooking lesson scheduled for 4pm started only a few hours late. Part of the charm of the cooking school is that they cook dinner for themselves and other guests, if others are staying for dinner. We’d booked in for the evening so spent a relaxing few hours enjoying a quiet bottle of wine and soaking in the rural atmosphere. It’s amazing how different the noise is here from the endless cacophony of London – birds and bugs, the rustle of the wind through the leaves of the trees, the rush of the river in the valley below – so different than the cars and lorries and horns and shouts of chavs.

Dinner was served outside in the dwindling light. Four courses including 3 antipasti’s as a first course, then a pasta course, then pork tenderloin wrapped in pork cheek, and finally a walnut and nutella cake – all amazingly tasty. Of course we also had a litre of the actually quite good house white wine, served out of a barrel I think. I finished off the meal with a café correcto (or something similar) on Ashley’s recommendation – an espresso with a shot of grappa in – significantly better than it sounds like it should be.

We ended the night after the sun had set with a walk down the gravel road in the darkness. We saw real stars for the first time in years, a nice change from the London light haze that we normally get. We also saw clouds of fireflies, something neither of us had ever seen before. If ever you get a chance to talk a walk at night in the Italian countryside, far from any cities or towns, with the stars lighting your way and the fireflies flashing in the fields and woods around you, I highly recommend you take it.

And our pics from Ravenna:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151838569200462.867987.805595461&type=3&l=b6ac759fa6

Looking forward to our dinner at the Masseria tonight

Jamikins, have you ever seen the mosaics in Monreale? If so, are they anything similar to Ravenna?

love the pics........awaiting next installment ..hmm a litre of italian house wine...very appealing on a pre work night here in london!

Sundried...not yet...Sicily is one of next years trips!!

pacino - I'll chime in here - we've seen the mosaics in
Montreale, Istanbul and two weeks ago, Ravenna.

Montreale is the most stunning IMO - esp. the huge Christ
Pantocrater over the altar. However, the mausoleum of Galla
Pacida (sp?) in Ravenna was just lovely and very 'approachable' compared to Montreale.

So glad you are back posting, Jamikins - love your TRs.

I.m enjoying your trip and looking forward to Puglia.

The mental picture of boiled calamari will stay with me for a while as I struggle to replace it with a vision of fireflies flashing in the fields.

Great report and I do like the idea of other people taking a cooking class and you get to eat the dinner that would definitely suit me better than having to cook!

Haha - sorry sassy_cat!

Another gloriously sunny day here in Puglia! Off to see some small towns and trullis today!

But first, another installment:


Day Three – A Plague upon Your Houses

Finally, a B&B with a comfortable bed! We both had an excellent sleep up until 6:30am, when we were rudely woken by a persistent and loud knocking on the small bedroom window. It took me ages to work out where the noise was coming from, and by the time I had pin-pointed it, it seemed to stop. Right until I got back to sleep, then straight back to BANG BANG BANG. I’d had enough and got up, storming over to the window ready to let whoever was absolutely have it. BANG BANG BANG. It was a bird throwing itself with some force headfirst into the window. Repeatedly. What can one do in that circumstance, except go back to bed and hope he brains himself at some point.

It continued for another half hour when either the severity of his concussion got the better of him, or he finally got it through his tiny little head that he couldn’t get through that way. Birds are stupid.

An hour later, my alarm went off for 8am. Jamie had planned a morning in Fossombrone for its Monday market – we’d planned on buying supplies for dinner at the market and cooking in tonight. With a slightly woolly head we got up and got ready, having a leisurely breakfast before loading into the car and driving out.

We both love French markets, and were very much looking forward to poking around an Italian one for a few hours. We made it into Fossombrome relatively quickly, and despite my unwillingness to park anywhere the mood took me in an Italian manner (at least from what we’d seen of Italian parking thus far on the trip), we found a parking spot in a lot right across the road from the market. We paid the euro for an hour and walked into what turned out to be the worst market I’ve been to in continental Europe (about average by British standards though).

Only one or two veg stands, three trucks selling porchetta (whole roasted suckling pig, served on a bun), and uncountable stands selling crap clothes, shoddy shoes, and bric-a-brac of various sorts. It makes sense I suppose for a region that doesn’t have malls, but it wasn’t what we’d been hoping for. We walked from one end to the other hoping against hope that we’d just picked the dodgy end and the proper market was at the other, but our hopes weren’t fulfilled. It was all dodgy.

Disappointed but slightly the wiser, we walked through the lower bit of Fossombrone to see if the town could redeem itself, but it couldn’t. To be fair to it, we didn’t make it up the hill to see the ancient bit because we’re a bit lazy and it was very hot, but it seemed like one of those places that’s really beautiful and picturesque from a distance but that’s about it.

Back into the car and off to stop numero due (number two) for the day – the tiny olive growing village of Cartoceto. Gazza decided to have a bit of fun with us, knowing my dislike of hill starts in manual transmission cars (I’ve always owned automatics, and we don’t even own a car at all in London, so I don’t really get much practice). Added to this is the shocking condition of our hire car’s clutch – whoever had this car before us thrashed the hell out of it, and I could barely get out of the parking area at the B&B with no walls or buildings or people about. So Gazza tried to take us up through the cobbled, steep, and narrow centre of Saltara. Not bloody likely. We took a detour and found signs pointing us in the right direction.

We got fairly close to Cartoceto and Gazza tried it on again, directing us to the narrow and windy Centro section of town – we were on to his tricks and parked up the first spot we saw and walked in. Which turned out to be a really good decision – I have no idea how they can call those roads in Cartoceto, two horses would have trouble passing!

The temperature was topping 37 Celsius, and there were no obviously located lunch venues other than a café in a parking lot at the bottom of the town. We persevered, climbing what seemed endless staircases up to the top of the village where we were rewarded with a ridiculously good three course lunch for only €27 for the two of us, including wine. They’d managed to confit a chicken in olive oil as far as we could tell, which is so much better than it sounds, and it sounds bloody tasty!

Sufficiently full, we trooped back down to the car, stopping briefly at a little cheese shop to pick up some parmesan for dinner and some homemade goats cheese for snacking – a fairly large selection only cost us €9 – I love the countryside.

We stopped briefly in Piobbico for a glass of wine for Jamie and a sprite and gelato for me (no wine, driving - sad). We sat at the one of the two cafés on the main road in Piobbico that wasn’t full of old men playing cards and pretended to be locals for a bit. We’ve often talked about our dream of moving to France for a life in the French countryside, and one of our key requirements is a little village nearby that has a few cafés, at least one good restaurant, a few little grocery stores, and at least one bigger grocery store. Piobbico seems to check all the requirements, other than not being in France.

We finished our drinks and ice cream and walked up to the Conad (my juvenile mind can’t help but change the first letter when I say it) to finish buying dinner – pasta sauce, a few bottles of wine, and some yoghurts for breakfasts. Back to Giancarlo the car for the final push back to the B&B.

We spent the last of the blisteringly hot afternoon lounging at the pool, soaking up the sun while we read our books and swam in the cool water. It seems that the caterpillars are starting to disappear – oh, I forgot to mention the caterpillar situation.

As it turns out, this area is having a bizarre plague of caterpillars. And by this area, I mean a few square miles around the B&B. And by plague, I mean of biblical proportions – we thought there was some sort of bizarre tree disease that had killed all the trees around here, but it turns out that it’s the billions of caterpillars eating everything green in sight. Well, not everything – it seems they like most trees including the pines, but dislike any shrubbery, grass, or things that live on trees (holly, or those climbing vine things). They’re EVERYWHERE, underfoot, falling off the roof, climbing walls. Apparently it’s a freak of nature sort of thing and has never happened before, and now it seems they’re all building their cocoons. I’d love to see the butterfly population later this year (or however long caterpillars take to turn into butterflies…).

After sitting in the sun as long as we felt was reasonable given our pasty British skin tone (we’re so white we’re almost blue, but the gills are coming in nicely), we moved to the little table outside our apartment for a glass or two of wine. Dinner was fettuccine with a meat ragu topped with the parmesan from Cartoceto, followed by a very nice local Sangiovese and my top 70’s rock playlist on the ipod.

Ah can't believe I missed the first days of posting of your trip report. Darn work gets in the way. But all caught up now!

We stayed 4 nights in Bologna at the same B&B as you. Wonderful hosts and we loved the city and the glorious food.

You guys write fantastic trip reports, always making the reader wish they were your travelling companions.

Looking forward to more.

"We paid the euro for an hour and walked into what turned out to be the worst market I’ve been to in continental Europe (about average by British standards though)."

Thou needs to get to Yorkshire some time lass

Bilboburgler - true, we were just at a really crap market in Rye so it's still fresh in our minds! I am sure there are some wonderful ones in yorkshire!

Ps - bikerscott, the trip writer, is my hubby, definitely not a lass ha

we came across the market in the town we were staying in this weekend, [Wells, in somerset] and were pleasantly surprised. Before the rain drove us indoors, we spotted stalls selling herbs, growing and cut, a lady selling eggs [from her own hens, presumably] nice bread and cakes, some interesting looking crafts, etc, etc.

I agree that it is unusual to find a crap market in Italy, but i suppose it has to happen sometime. I think I'd have put up with it to be with you on the trip though!

BTW, immimmi - <<Pacida (sp?) in Ravenna was just lovely and very 'approachable' compared to Montreale>> - can you tell me why the mosaics in Monreale are less approachable - we're planning a trip to sicily and they are on my list!

Annhig - we went to a few in La Marche, and it seemed to be the same vans at all of them...fortunately they have cafes with strong coffee and/or gelato to soften the disappointment.

ann - in the Bapistry in Ravenna you are physically very close
to the mosaics (it's a small space) and the Galla Placidia
mausoleum is small enough to wander around near the walls; in
Montreale the huge Christ Pantocrater is up high over the altar so is distant.

We will now return to the regular scheduled and wonderful
program....sorry for the disruption.

bikerScott - no more porchetta vans? - shame!

immimi - thanks!. i understand what you meant now.

It was more the van after van of crappy cotton t shirts that did us in!!

Enjoying your report! Looking forward to the next installment. Thanks for sharing!

Just found this wonderful yarn ... thanks Jamikins & Bikerscott, I'm really enjoying your trip.

I'm really enjoying it as well, really like the way you decribe your vacation, so funny and interesting at the same time.

Day Four – He Killed All the Chickens Because He Thought They Were Lazy, or Explanations to the Police after the Incident

As previously mentioned, I am a foodie with a delicate stomach but an adventurous disposition. This became an issue at 3:30 this morning when the heartburn was bad enough to wake me up – a combination of rich food with a surfeit of wine was making its presence known. Fortunately our forward planning at the airport meant that I have a ready supply of Zantac (or a reasonable non-branded replacement) for just these sorts of situations.

We got to sleep in until 9 this morning, which was nice after the rude night time interruption. Jamie had the brilliant idea to close the wooden shutters so the brain-damaged bird didn’t continue with his suicide missions (evidently this is a known issue, and a daily occurrence. Ashley and Jason have named the bird “Petey” for unknown reasons, and think he may be attacking his own reflections. Why he does this only in the morning is still a mystery).

Today’s mission was an unusual one for us – instead of traipsing across the length and breadth of La Marche in the car, we were instead going to spend the day in cooking lessons with Jason, a professionally trained chef from New York who not only runs the B&B with his lovely wife Ashley but does all the cooking and runs classes for those that are interested.

We started with a brief introduction and an explanation of the menu for the day. There was a lot of cooking planned, including a fair amount of pastry making, which is not one of my strong suits.

We’ve taken a fair number of cooking courses over the years, and in a comparison with other teachers, Jason ranks up there. The dishes we made were new to both Jamie and I, but not overly complicated and ones that we could make at home. In particular, Jamie’s versions of the extra-thin frittata and the veal in a pan with pan sauce were excellent, and she said that she could probably even make them at home – we may break the 10 dinners cooked in 10 years of marriage yet!

We had a busy morning cooking our lunch and doing quite a bit of the prep for dinner before having lunch at about 1pm, and then a break until 4pm to start cooking the rest of dinner. In our break, I managed to get what’s turned out to be a fairly good sunburn on my shoulders while frolicking in the pool (Jamie, who had the good sense to apply a generous portion of sunscreen, is burn-free). I then had a nap under a sunshade for an hour or so – an excellent way to spend a hot summer afternoon in rural Italy.

After our break, we cracked on with dinner prep – dinner included a meat plate (thinly sliced proscuito and slices of homemade salami), chicken liver on toasts that we’d made, chard tart (fresh as fresh could be – I even found half a caterpillar in mine, surprising since Jamie and I had cleaned and drained the chard ourselves…no idea what happened to the other half, but no one complained so I’m not saying anything…), and fresh peas from the garden with cherry tomatoes with parsley and mint in a beautiful sauce.

Our pasta course was a delicious white lasagne that had plenty of extra noodle off the edges which went all crispy (and little pieces thereof provided the ants a considerably challenge, after I dropped some relatively large pieces into their path – the pieces were all slightly larger than the entrance to their tunnel system – who needs tv when we have the Discovery channel live in front of us?). The main course was rosemary skewers on the grill with sausage and beef wrapped in proscuito – I haven’t grilled on open flame in almost half a decade, so it was heaven for me.

We finished with tarts that Jamie and I had made – strawberry for Jamie and fig for me. Mine was better, if I do say so myself. This with more “corrected coffee” for me, copious amounts of wine and homemade liquor, and great conversation.

Dinner was actually fairly crowded this evening – we had two other tables, including a family of four who had just arrived today, and the Dutch couple who’ve been here a few days. It might have been the wine, or possibly the brilliance of the cooking, but we got to talking to the Dutch couple and had quite a good night as it turned out.

They’ve decided to pack it in in the Netherlands and move to La Marche. They’re here to explore the region and possibly buy a house, if they find one they like. To say that Jamie and I are jealous is an understatement. They’ve fallen in love with this part of Italy and feel that it’s home – I think we’re sort of feeling the same.

After clearing the tables, Ashley joined us and the Dutch couple for a final nightcap, which turned into an hour or so of talking. Its always amazing to me how well people from all over the world can get along. No common background, but a shared love of a place (and a fair bit of wine, grappa, and homebrew liquor) make conversation so much easier. Including Ashley’s tales of her Okie grandfather, who at one point killed all his chickens because he thought they were lazy. When she made this pronouncement, I very nearly lost control of my bladder from laughing so hard – it sounds like the sort of thing that the family says to the police when explaining how things escalated to the “Incident”, which makes the evening news at six.

For us, a fairly quiet day, but I think the best we’ve had on a holiday in quite a long time. So good that we’re thinking of booking another week sometime next year and dragging a bunch of our foodie friends for a few cooking lessons. Despite the sunburn, I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

now I'm looking forward to reading Jamie's account of this day - including who made the best tart in HER opinion!

Well annhig, I tried them both and let's just say that in my opinion (and that of several guests-yes we had to get a score) the person that made the strawberry tart did a fabulous job!!

Cooking lessons were fantastic and to be honest, we just commented today that some of our favourite dishes on the trip were made by or with the help of Jason...the white lasagne was just incredible!! And me veal cutlets were pretty darn good too!! I am sure my wonderful hubby agrees (he better if he expects me to cook them!!)

i see u are experiencing the "restaurant almost to ourselves" italian vibe we had

yes i think we definitely need jamie's account on the tarts

enjoy your trip report-very jealous!

haha speak of the devil

hmm- think u guys are going to have to do a strawberry&fig tart

I agree with Jamikins - the person that did the strawberry tart did do a fabulous job, it's just that the fig tart tasted better...ahh the joys of having two iPads while on holidays...I can reply almost as fast as she can!

Oh, and the veal was excellent, surpassed only by the sheer brilliance of the paper thin frittata. Also, I need totalk to you about what you're making me for breakfast when we get home...

Hmmm depends - change of heart on the tart evaluation??

HG - we are almost always only one of two tables everywhere we go...and these restaurants are huge!! Do they ever fill up or were they built over optimistically we wonder....

just make sure one of them doesn't break! and my senses making me crave the fig (sorry jamie)- simply because it seems more italian. Its wimbledon here so strawberries on offer all round!!

Oh HG, I thought we were bonding...fig?? Really??.

hmm good question- i think they do, in puglia we saw loads of pics of places full and i guess financially they must surely......

yeah but more due to ingredients rather then true chef qualities-because they feel more italian and i am strawberried out for now!! I'm sure if u did the fig tart it would be even tastier!!

Hmmm ok I suppose I will accept that hahaha ok off for dinner!!

enjoy!

.the white lasagne was just incredible!!>>

care to share the recipe, jamikens?

OMG - just rolled home from the best meal of the trip so far!! We ordered the antipasta della cassa plus pasta plus secondi - and the antipasta ended up being 10 small dishes EACH!!! SO FULL! We ended the night with a Laurel Liquor - they brought out the herb and we think its Bay leaf?? Will have to do some searching...

Recipe will come for sure - we are getting a small cook book from the farm so will be sure to report back!!

Off to clean up some photos and write the report - on Sat we have reservations at a place with an 8 course dinner - surely the 10 antipasta arent ONE course??????

jamikins, laurel is bay leaf. That must have been an interesting liquor!

looking forward to reading your adventures!

...we had grappa flavored with bay leaf in Umbria - it was
a lovely subtle green in colour.

Yes I thought so!! Glad my taste buds and herb recognition have not failed me!! Very interesting taste...I mean I drank it hahaha!!

Hi there, this trip report is an entertaining as yours always are! thank you for putting so much time into writing it.

Hey Scott, for what it's worth, I get dreadful indigestion if I have coffee with my evening meal. Maybe skip the coffee and have an extra liquor??

Good evening Fodorites - another beautiful sunny day in Puglia - we could get used to this!

Glad everyone is still following along and enjoying!


Day Five – A Holiday on the Sun

Jamie let me sleep in this morning until just after 10 – this is pretty much unheard of on our holidays, but this trip seems to be more about relaxation than site-seeing so a lie-in was deemed permissible. It was wonderful. The bed, while not quite as nice as our memory foam mattress at home, is one of the better mattresses I’ve slept on while on holiday. It’s so quiet here, other than the sounds of nature, that I’m sleeping like a baby. A slightly drunken baby to be fair, but nonetheless.

After finally getting up, we walked out onto what was soon to become the surface of the sun. By 11:00 when we left it was already pushing 32 Celsius with blue skies above and not a cloud in sight. Ashley gave us directions to Urbino and we set off without Gazza to direct us – an adventure if ever there was one.

She’d suggested that we take the slightly longer but far more scenic road to Urbania, staying off the autostrada and using the windy mountain road instead. Windy doesn’t even begin to describe it. Despite the 90km/hr speed limit, I had to keep it in third gear pretty much the entire way, even dropping down into second on some of the sharper corners.

By the time we finally got to Urbino, the mercury had nearly hit 37 and was still climbing. We found the big parking lot in front of the town, and even found an empty spot to leave Giancarlo for the afternoon. Of course Urbino is a hill town, so our first mission was to climb up to the main part of the city – this being us, we chose the steep stairs rather than the not quite so steep road that we hadn’t noticed.

Urbino is a university town, so like Bologna there were a load of students about, most of whom seemed somehow unaffected by the heat. A few were even wearing jeans, which seemed crazy to us, melting in our shorts and linen shirts as we were. We made it a priority to find a restaurant to eat at, and after checking the menus at a few in the main square and rejecting them as being too studenty, we found a place just up (and I mean up) the road which offered typical Urbinian food apparently.

Lunch was, as we’ve come to expect in this part of Italy, very good, extremely filling, and not overly expensive. I finally had another plate of pasta fagiole (pasta with beans), something I haven’t seen since an epic evening of eating several years ago in a village just above Positano on the Amalfi Coast. Jamie was still feeling a bit carsick from rollercoaster ride getting to Urbino, and I think a bit from the heat as well, so only had a single glass of wine and a plate of pasta. I went for a chicken diavolo for my main dish, which turned out to be a grilled chicken with some sort of spice on it – not sure what, but it was very tasty.

After lunch we walked up the very steep hill to Piazza Roma to see the scenic view of the town. The map that described this was a bit misleading – the view is of the town, however it’s of the not particularly interesting new bit of town down by the parking lot. Not worth the trek up that bloody hill, that’s for sure. The map also showed a little series of alleys leading back down the side of the hill with a few outlooks along the way. I think it was closed – at any rate we couldn’t find it.

Admitting defeat, we walked back down that damn hill back to the main piazza and up the hill on the other side for a look at the ducal palace (or dookie palace, as I’ve taken to calling it, because while I may be chronologically in my mid-to-late-thirties, I have the juvenile sense of humour of an immature twelve year old).

We didn’t quite make it before the cool interior of a massive church beckoned to us – not because of any religious feeling, but simply because it looked as if it might be a little less warm inside than out. It was.

While I’m not religious, I do like lighting candles in churches when I go in, for reasons explained in previous reports. The churches in La Marche seem to have gone into the 21st century in a big way and have replaced all the little candles with electric lights. Some you put into little plugs yourself, and in the church next to the ducal palace, they’re all already in place – you drop your offering in and one of the several dozen will turn on for a while. It seems to lessen the little ceremony of lighting a candle in the darkness, but maybe that’s just me.

Slightly cooler and refreshed, we ventured back out to see if we could find the entrance to the palace. We did, but it seemed to just be an exhibition of urban planning on display, for which we would need to buy tickets. Neither of us were particularly interested, so we walked back down to the piazza, stopping for a gelato on the way.

We paid for the parking – only €3.60 for three hours, which isn’t bad at all, and got into the car. I keep thinking that I really should leave the windows open just a crack when we leave Giancarlo parked in the sun, but never when we actually park it in the sun. We had to open all the doors and let the air conditioning run for five minutes before we could get in, and even then I just about burned my hand on the gear shifter when I tried to put it in reverse. We set Gazza for home via the Furlo gorge – a longer drive than the way up, but much straighter plus it offered a detour through a tunnel built by the Romans. Well actually the slaves of Vespasian, to create via Flaminia that leads all the way to Rome about 250 km from here.

The Furlo gorge is amazing. The tunnel was chipped through the stone, and has seen emperors, kings, queens, and countless others pass through it before the big autostrada was built. Apparently the road became notorious for highwaymen and brigands, and I can see why. Narrow and winding next to the river it wouldn’t take much to stop a coach back in the day. We stopped at a pullout to take some photos, and continued on our way.

Our last stop was in Piobbico for a soda at one of the cafés on the main road, followed by a stop in at Conad for dinner supplies. It was kind of neat going to the same small café for the second time in a few days – they remembered us and were happy to welcome us back – not something we get all that often in London with the endless stream of people through.

One of the signs in town said it was 41 celsius – this at 4:30 when the temperature had finally started to drop. No wonder we were melting. With the heat, and the richness and amount of the food we’ve been eating for the last few days, we decided to take a bit of a break for dinner this evening. In addition to the obligatory bottle of wine or two, we also picked up an assortment of fresh fruit for our evening meal, including a bowl of just about the best cherries I’ve ever had, and a quarter of a watermelon that was so large it almost needed a basket on it’s own.

We’ve had a lazy afternoon and evening back at La Tavola Marche. A dip in the pool followed by an hour or so reading our books in the lounge chairs next to the pool, then snacking on fruit at the little table outside our room. And wine, of course.

3 weeks ago the high was 15deg. and the rain was pelting down.

Love the 'surface of the sun' - you do have a way with words!

As always, enjoying your report and photos! Thanks!!!

And here are the pics from Le Marche:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151838594140462.867991.805595461&type=1&l=9a81a23e9e

Happy Thursday everyone!

Scott, it all sounds lovely and I'm enjoying reading about something other than the usual big 3 or 4 Italian cities. Not that I don't love them, but this is something else to consider next time! I love your photos too.

Here's a little tip when you head out next time in the car. Throw a bath towel in the car and drape it (folded thickly) over the steering wheel and gear stick while the car is parked.

It's not a fun experience to grab hold of a boiling hot steering wheel or gear stick - as a resident of Sydney, I know it well. My car has leather seats and hopping into that car when it's been parked in the summer sun is a mistake I only made once!!!

Really enjoying reading about your holiday adventures - also really lovely pictures, Puglia really is nice, not wonder so many Fodorites love it so much, plus the food looks divine.

Make sure both of you are putting on sun block when you are out in the sun, otherwise you will each end up like an enormous boiled calamari!!!

Thanks so much for taking up your precious time to report to us Fodorites, who love travelling so much. It seems like we are doing the holiday with you!!!

We're headed to Le Marche in a few months, and I'm loving every word of your report. And those pictures are amazing!! Thanks so much.

I feel your pain!! We hit 112F yesterday (I guess around 44C) YIKES! But we have the monsoons rolling in late afternoons to help us cool down

LOVE the report! Just the kind of vacation I would take if I wasnt going to be a first timer to Italy (or Europe at all!!)in three more months! You guys crack me up! Thanks for sharing!

Great tips cathies!! And yes, Anna, I lather up on the sunscreen trust me...as a fair skinned person it is essential!!!!

Enjoy your trip readytogo...I am sure it won't be your last!

Another gloriously sunny day here in Puglia..,a girl could get spoiled!!

Modern you are going to love it! The landscape is just beautiful and it's so nice to not get crushed by all the tourists! Just ask if you have any questions!!

Just getting ready to watch the Italy vs. Germany game tonight. The Masseria has a huge screen they are erecting in the courtyard so we can all enjoy our meal and watch the game together! GO ITALY!!!

Day Six – The Video Game Theory of Touristing

After the epic lie-in yesterday, we decided to make an early start to the day today. That meant two things: 1) due to careful planning, we went to bed relatively early, and 2) the damn alarm went off at 8:30am, which in my opinion is far too early for a relaxing summer holiday. We dragged our sorry selves out of bed, showered etc, and left.

Mission today was Gubbio – not technically in La Marche, located instead in nearby Umbria next door. We’d been in a train which inexplicably stopped on the track just below Gubbio some 10 years ago on our honeymoon trip. At the time, an extraordinarily ugly man (whom we named Pig Man at the time) tried to remove the tonsils through the mouth of an unusually attractive woman who was wearing a very short skirt. The view of Gubbio up on its hill was the only other thing to look at, and much preferable to the alternative on the seats across from us.

So ten years later, we drove the unbelievably badly maintained road from La Marche into Umbria and found ourselves at the parking lots just below Gubbio. I had managed to give myself a minor corneal abrasion on the drive and was in quite a lot of pain, but as I’m extremely tough didn’t whinge about it nearly as much as I could have. To be completely honest, I made Jamie aware of the issue in no uncertain terms; I’m just saying I could have been more vocal than I was.

Gubbio is well designed for the lazy tourist, featuring several lifts to take one up to the top of the little hill town. We found these fairly quickly and made our way up the first lift, where we presented with the option of paying to get into the local municipal museum, or continuing up on another lift to another higher level. We went up, based on the video game theory that going to a higher level is almost always better and leads to more valuable rewards (this was my thinking at any rate, I’m not sure Jamie thought about it in quite the same way).

At the top of the second lift, we were again presented with the option of paying to get into this time a church museum of some sort, or taking the mystery path to the left. We went left and found ourselves in a church. This almost never happens in video games; normally I would have expected a troll or other baddie to block our way.

The church was churchy, with the now expected electric candles. This one also featured “Pay to Illuminate” lights, without which the interior was quite dark. I don’t mind dropping a donation at the box whenever I go into a church, but having to pay for lights seems a bit much to me.

After leaving the church we found yet another ticket office – this one for the Ducal Palace (another dookie palace, yes, I giggled again). This time instead of taking the path to the left, we paid our €5 each for the self-guided tour. It was a bit of a rip-off, if I’m perfectly honest. The archaeological section underground was sort of interesting, but mostly featured broken bits of walls and broken bits of pots with no explanations for either.

The upstairs bit was room after room of paintings, again with no explanations (we did later find a map with the paintings on, but only in Italian, which didn’t help as a) they were at the exit and b) we don’t speak enough Italian). The only positive of the tour was the unfinished toilets on the deserted 2nd floor of the bit off to the side that I don’t think we were supposed to be in. By the time we found them I was a bit desperate, so it came as quite a relief and almost worth the €10 we’d paid for the two of us to enter in the first place.

After our generally non-informative tour of the palace, we felt lunch was in order. Gubbio is a great little city with not a lot of tourists about, which unfortunately means not a lot of selection in the lunch arena, as far as we could discern. The restaurant we did end up was actually quite nice, and we had an excellent lunch outside watching tourists walk down the hill and what must’ve been locals drive up it. As a side-note – the locals either have a great deal of trouble finding parking, or there is some sort of Gubbian obsession with driving around and around all afternoon, because most cars we saw more than once or twice in the few hours we sat there.

We stuffed ourselves silly at lunch. We had the Menu Tipico which included 4 courses with dessert. We ordered a glass of wine for Jamie and a coke for me and got a bottle of wine and a coke, and rather than making a fuss we felt we should drink the wine, which was quite tasty. I had to drive so didn’t drink as much of it as I normally would have, can’t imagine what the waitress thought when we ordered a bottle and a coke.

After lunch we continued down the hill, keeping between the two of us three eyes out for a pharmacy where I could by some eye drops which we were unable to find between lunch and the car. The drive back towards La Marche was as terrible as the drive out, which leads me to two observations. Firstly, Umbria really needs to spend more time and money maintaining their roads. Secondly, when hiring a car, make sure before driving away that the car is equipped with both an engine, and also suspension not made out of jello. The Hyundai did not do well.

As is our new tradition, we stopped briefly in Piobbico for a soft drink and gelato at the little café, followed by a purchase of wine (and sunblock) at the Conad, and finally a brief game of charades in the local pharmacy for some eye drops (the pharmacists didn’t speak English, and I don’t know enough Italian to explain that I’ve got a great bloody scratch on my eyeball and need some drops to make it feel better). I think I’ve ended up with the right thing, but if I’m blind tomorrow morning, we’ll have a suspect in mind.

La Tavola Marche was hosting their weekly Thursday night pizza extravaganza tonight and we’d signed up. Jason got the wood-burning pizza oven going at about 6 in the evening and started stretching the pizza shells to an appreciative audience of residents. Dinner was scheduled to start at 7:30 for the people staying at the B&B, with a second seating for the 15 locals from Piobbico booked in to start some time after 8pm.

We got going on time and freshly cooked pizza after pizza came flying out of the oven. They were all tasty and hot, with the vegetarian and margarita being the winners I think. The 15 locals turned into 25 with no notice, but Ashley and Jason took it in their stride, moving tables around to accommodate everyone.

The evening was fantastic, with wine and conversation flowing. We made some new friends – a Dutch couple exploring the area with an eye to moving here, a Kiwi couple visiting for a few days, and an American family doing the grand tour of Italy. The Italians were hilarious, with a few faces we recognized from Piobbico. After too much pizza and probably too much wine, we’ve called it a night – slightly drunk but happy with the evening.

What road did you take to Gubbio? We're staying in Cagli, and plan to take a day trip there, and I wonder if we can avoid the bad highway (and any injury). Also, do you remember the name of the restaurant where you had lunch?

Thanks so much.

Modeen, we took the main highway through Cagli, it was fine...the roads are a bit rough everywhere but not horrific haha!

I will try to find the restaurant, it was great!

oh my those pictures are Sooooooooo good!! i am so hungry now!!

(and scott the strawberry tart lookgin pretty great!)

Thank you HG - we are buddies again hahaha

Ps - woo hoo Italy! Just watched the game with all the Italians and it was awesome! Bring on the final!!

Super TR!

A quick chime in also about Monreale vs. Ravenna. DH and I visited both. While I believe Ravenna's are older, both Monreal and the Cappellla Palatina in Palermo moved me more. There seemed to be so much more gold in the latter walls. If possible, please see both. Some of Ravenna's more colorful also according to my notes.

Thanks TDudette!

Modeen - I don't have the name or address but if you park in the main parking lot at the base of the old town you will walk up the main street - at the top intersection you turn right and there is a lift up to the church etc on the hill. If you turn left and walk down it will be on your right before the big hill...it has a wooden patio with a few tables out and white fabric covered chairs (looks quite fancy). The have a menu out front with a degustation menu and another cheaper one plus a la carte. We did the cheaper menu and it was great!

Hope this helps!!

Yes, Jamikins, it was a good football game, we watched it too. I can't imagine how ecstatic the Italians are for winning the game, and going to the finals. Everyone looked so happy on tv.

It is going to be a big feast all over Italy on Sunday for sure!! Enjoy the atmosphere, if you will still be there!!I find it so funny how Italians kiss and hug each other all the time on the streets, especially in central and southern Italy, even people they barely know!!

Enjoy rest of your trip. I can't wait to hear more about it!!

ooh - missed the match! sounds like it was a goodie too.

fingers crossed for sunday for the azzuri!

Unfortunately we willbe back in England for Sunday's match...sounds like a takeaway curry is in order!!

What fantastic photos, Jamikins! And, another great story, BikerScott!

Thanks!

Thanks for the restaurant info. I'll order a bottle of wine and a Coke and think of you.

Mo

great story thus far

sorry you've got to come back - especially to this weather, though it looks as if london hasn't been as bad as the rest of the country.

some poor people were on a train from london to glasgow that took 15 hours due to torrential rain, a landslip, and then the train catching fire. as one of the passengers said, about the only thing they didn't have was pestilence.

welcome home!

So we shouldn't complain about the 40 degree weather and blazing sun in Matera today?? Oh man, we don't want this trip to end!!!!

Oh, please tell about Matera!

So we shouldn't complain about the 40 degree weather and blazing sun in Matera today??>>

no you shouldn't!

in fact I'll never talk to you again if you do, so there.

ok - not complaining but it was HOT today


Day Seven – Like Puberty in a Glass

An 8:30am start for us again today, which I’m starting to think isn’t a good time to start the day on a holiday. I had a terrible sleep last night, with a Zantac moment waking me up at 4:30 and keeping me up until that wonderful little pill kicked in. Another day with brilliant blue sky, not a cloud in sight. After a quick breakfast of fresh (although slightly frozen) fruit, pear juice and especially strong coffee, we were off to Appechio for their Friday market, which we’d heard was a chicken market.

Ashley had mentioned that the dirt road between us and the paved bit to Appechio was worse than the dirt road between us and the paved bit to Piobbico, and she wasn’t kidding. Giancarlo the car did fine, but I would’ve been more comfortable in a 4-wheel drive. I don’t want to think about what this region would be like in the depths of winter – getting stuck in your house for weeks at a time would be a real possibility I would have thought.

The road to Appechio was windy and steep. The Italians don’t seem to agree with the North American idea of blasting relatively straight and flat paths through mountains, preferring instead to build entertainingly convoluted roads with switchbacks and blind corners aplenty. We survived the drive and found a free parking spot just off the main road in Appechio.

The market seemed to be the same as the one in Fossembrone a few days previously, with the same porchetta vans, clothing vans, and brick-a-brac as we’d seen earlier (literally – this is a travelling market) with the sole exception of the poultry selling van. He had a small selection of ducks of various varieties, a few chickens looking a little sorry for themselves, a few birds that looked suspiciously like turkeys, and a few pigeons. Not exactly what we’d been hoping for when thinking of what a chicken market would look like.

We gave up on the market fairly quickly and instead walked up the stairs across from the market into the old part of town up on the hill. Old Appechio is actually really interesting, although quite small. Typically narrow streets and cobbles all over the place. We explored for a bit, and then headed back down the hill for a cappuccino at one of the little cafés on the main road through the village.

Ashley had recommended that after the market we visit the local grappa distillery and brewery on the hill just above Appechio. We were parked on the road to it, so thought it a good idea to give it a go. The road turned out to be the most insane bit of tarmac I’ve ever seen, and not really in a good way.

It was more or less vertical, with switchbacks so close to switchbacks that the steering wheel never got back to centre. I spent most of the drive struggling in 2nd gear, having to drop down into 1st on a couple of the steeper and tighter corners. I’ve never driven anything like it, and hope to never again. Not even a road that would be good for a Ferrari – I don’t think you could drive it in a supercar, the inclines around the corners would be too much for the low ground-clearance to handle.

We drove right past the distillery on the first attempt, as they’d forgotten to put any signs up indicating that it was in fact the distillery. It was only after driving for about 15 minutes along the increasingly rural and isolated road into the next valley that we felt that we’d probably gone too far and turned back. We stopped in at the only building we’d seen that might possibly be a distillery, and turned out to be right.

We tasted the only beer they had left in stock, a very tasty red ale, and a small selection of their grappa. I’ve never tasted different grappas side by side like that, and hadn’t realized how different they can be – much like scotch in that respect. I ended up buying 3 giant bottles of the beer and a bottle of the grappa made from Verdiccio grapes to take home. The drive down the hill was a bit easier than the drive up, in that I sort of knew what to expect.

Next on our itinerary for the day was the village of Sant Angelo in Vado, the endpoint on the ill-advised walking trip the Kiwi women went missing on for our first day in La Marche. The road between Appechio and San Angelo was so convoluted that it actually made me a bit car sick, something that’s never happened to me as a driver before. An important thing to remember when planning trips in this area – while the distances between places isn’t necessarily all that far, it can take quite a bit longer to drive than you might expect.

San Angelo was an interesting little town, with narrow little streets and portico lined roads. Like Appechio, it was bustling in the town centre with a few cafés doing fairly good business. We explored for a bit until the heat got to us – it was after noon, so we thought lunch might be in order. We found a pizzeria and sat down for a light pasta lunch (no pizza on offer despite it being a pizzeria – evidently it makes it too hot in the kitchen to turn on the big pizza ovens during the day, so they don’t).

After lunch we got back into the car for our final stop on the list for the day – the fourth little village closest to us, Urbania. The road from San Angelo to Urbania was blissfully flat and relatively straight. Again, Urbania was small but busy, with a few little cafés and restaurants seeming to be doing fairly well despite the time of day. We parked up and went for a bit of a wander, stopping first for a much needed post-lunch gelato.

We walked from one end of town to the other and back before a young American student stopped us to ask if we were touring the town – she wanted to know if we’d found the Ducal palace on the far side of town, and offered to show us at least part of the way there. We hadn’t, so accepted her offer – our third Ducal Palace in as many days – you mustn’t have been able to swing a cat in this part of Italy and one time without hitting a Duke!

By the time we’d seen the palace and walked back to the main square, we were pretty much done with sight-seeing for the day. The temperature was pushing 40˚C and we were in need of some serious pool time. We made the observation on the drive home that one of the biggest differences between this part of Italy and many of the rural and non-touristy regions of France that we’ve been to (other than the architecture, language, and food clearly) is that the small villages around here seem to be very much alive, full of people and small business and thriving communities, whereas villages that seem to be of equivalent size are ghost towns in France. Not sure if this is just the villages we’ve been to both here and in France, or if it’s more wide-spread than that.

We spent the afternoon relaxing at the pool enjoying the heat and sunshine – we’d run out of our spray-on sun block so had to revert to low-tech regular smear on crème, but other than this it was pretty much ideal. As the sun got low in the sky, we were invited to join in the olive oil tasting session that was going on as part of the day’s cooking lesson, and then spent an hour chatting with Ashley as the class put the finishing touches on the evening’s dinner.

Supper was excellent, as prepared by the class. We all stuffed ourselves silly and some of us drank quite a bit of the wine provided – we had a great night chatting to the American family beside us and the Kiwi couple at the end of the table. The quote of the week goes to Nat, the youngest son of the Americans, who heard Jamie say that the homemade grappa was strong enough to put hair on his chest – he came out with “Like puberty in a glass” – classic. We finished the evening by candlelight and little glasses of homebrew liquor, watching the fireflies light up the forest, before blowing out the candles and calling it a day.

40 degrees...wow its notched up a bit since we left!...not that i'm jealous or anything

i'm confused are u still off to puglia or am i confused!!?!?

<<We spent the afternoon relaxing at the pool enjoying the heat and sunshine>>

ooohhhh relaxing by the pool....(again not that i'm jealous or anything)

loving the report!

Not exactly what we’d been hoping for when thinking of what a chicken market would look like.>>

shame about the lack of chucks! when we were in France the year before last, there was a market in the local town [called Thouars, I think], where as well as the normal market type goods, they did in fact have a lot of live ducks and hens for sale. we didn't spend a lot of time looking at them [we have our own to look at at home] but they did add an extra dimension, and some noise, to the proceedings.

<<ok - not complaining but it was HOT today >>

ok, not complaining but it was bloody awful today. more wind, more rain. worst june on record.

please will you let me know next time you are booking a holiday so that I can book to go away at the same time?

I think I would have spit out my grappa when I heard the "puberty in a glass" comment...that is classic!

I'm really enjoying your trip report and fantastic photos...As Always! And I was pleased to see the photo of Bar Calice in Bologna, my "go to" spot for aperitivo when I was in Bologna a couple years ago.

HG - we are currently in Puglia, trip report is about a week behind in posting...

Annhig - Greece for the last two weeks of August - either buy a snorkel and sty in Blighty ortake it to the sun!

LowCountry - we nearly did! That kid was hilarious!! Classic!

Jamie actually got the recommendation for Bar Calice from your excellent trip report!!

Annhig - Greece for the last two weeks of August - either buy a snorkel and sty in Blighty ortake it to the sun!>>

ooooh, too hot for me. I'll just have to stay here and buy some water wings.

Well we are going to be sailing in the Dodecanese so hopefully we get a nice breeze!!

Well we are going to be sailing in the Dodecanese so hopefully we get a nice breeze!!>>

you don't need to leave the UK to enjoy a nice breeze! [well, a breeze anyway].

Talk about a small world...we met our guide Nadia today in Matera (well recommended for Matera on this board...and rightly so!) and met another couple who were also on the tour...funny enough the woman was a fodorite!! How wonderfully random...we spent the afternoon with welltraveledbrit and her partner!! Was fantastic!

we spent the afternoon with welltraveledbrit and her partner!! Was fantastic!>>

jamikins - what fun!

ahh get ya i thought u were off to puglia-get in now!

And how random we are also (having just got back from puglia) off to Greece (paxos) last two weeks August!

We need to align some of these fodorite trips haha!

Just getting ready for our last meal in Italy...sigh...

Day Eight – Fano, But Not in a Dirty Way

Morning seems to come too early in this part of Italy. After a restless night dreaming of the Zombie apocalypse (not the most pleasant dream of all time, although I did fairly well once I got hold of an M-16 – I need to spend less time playing my xbox perhaps) and of friends I hadn’t seen from junior high school (no idea where this one came from). Also, the sunlight is brighter here than in London. To be fair, we rarely get sunlight in London, usually just morning drizzle followed by mid-morning rain, after which afternoon downpours are capped with evening showers. A typical London forecast is “sunny with clouds and a chance of heavy showers.” This part of Italy seems to be “bloody hot with a chance of heat”.

We’ve driven most of the roads around here, and visited the local villages. The only thing we haven’t yet done that was on our list was visit the coast, so we headed east to the resort town of Fano, which sounds slightly dirty to my British ears. The only experience I’ve ever had with Adriatic resort towns was Naxos in the Greek Islands, so I was sort of expecting something like that. Fano is NOT like that.

The east coast of this part of Italy is apparently where the Italians come for their summer beach holidays. As such, every inch of beach (and I’m being generous with this description) is covered in pay-to-lounge umbrella covered private fenced-off areas. We walked for about 15 minutes before finding a 50-yard stretch of free beach squished between large signs indicating the private sections to either side were very much private.

As for the beach – when I go to the seaside for recreation and ocean adventure, one of the main things I look for is miles of white sand, blue water, etcetera. The beaches in Fano, and apparently along pretty much all of the east coast are rocky and/or pebbly. To be fair, the rocks are well worn and round like river rock, but still, not my ideal.

It was blisteringly hot, so the 30 minutes we spent walking on the sidewalk separated from the ocean by 50 yards of private beaching was uncomfortable. We’d decided to find a local restaurant that specialized in fish as recommended by Ashley, but couldn’t. We eventually gave up and sat at one of the resort cafeteria/bar/restaurant places for a drink if nothing else. After a glass of wine, we decided that the thought of moving on was too much, as there was likely to be nothing better to be found in the area we were in at any rate.

It turned out that Jamie’s mixed fish grill and my calamari and shrimp skewers were actually quite good and filling. We enjoyed the heat and ocean breeze for what it was, and were entertained by the waves of seeming octogenarians as they came up from the waterfront for their afternoon refreshment (we were the youngest around by several decades as far as we could see from where we were sitting, although the aquafit class in the swimming pool next to the ocean was full of young people – for a little while it seemed like some sort of bizarre alternate universe where everything was reversed).

After lunch we walked back into the old part of Fano to find the gelato place that Ashley had recommended - Maki, on the edge of Piazza Something (the map we have is covered in ink, circling the piazza to show us where it is – at the intersection of Via Nolfi and Via Arco D’Augustio at any rate). It was good gelato – possibly the best I’ve had in Italy, and definitely the best on this trip.

A quick walk around Fano after our icy treat confirmed our impression of the town – not somewhere we’d want to spend a lot of time for the town itself, but probably brilliant fun if you’re into Italian beach town holidays. We walked back to the car and drove west, back to the hills of our part of Le Marche.

We stopped in Piobbico for our now traditional afternoon soda at Café del Corso on the main street in Piobbico (where I got a Ciao! from the woman working there, rather than the usual Buongiorno that I’ve been getting up to now), then a walk to the Conad for dinner supplies.

We spend the remainder of the afternoon basking in the sun at the poolside before making pancetta and melon for our antipasti, followed by tortellini in pesto for our main. We were the only ones at La Tavola for the majority of the afternoon and we loved the silence and peace of it.

Tomorrow we drive south to Puglia for the second week of our holiday. I’ll be sad to leave this part of Italy. We’ve always wanted to move to the Southwest of France and own a small farm and gite. This part of Italy is making us reconsider that plan a little bit – an Italian farmhouse in the hills around here would be pretty fantastic as well. We love the landscape, the people are wonderful, the villages are alive and interesting, and the food is just about as perfect as food can be.

you've left out the weather, biker!

annhig - I just checked the London weather forecast and I feel like crying!! Rain?? ALL WEEK??? Enough already

yes, the forecast is for more of the same - until december. something about warring weather systems meeting over england, apparently.

now where's my sou'wester?

Annhig...please tell me you are joking...December??!!

well, this was just the butcher talking, but it fits in with how it feels - no decent weather on the horizon for next week according to the BBC.

I did find this predicting a scorching August in the torygraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/8409452/Britain-set-for-brolly-and-sunblock-summer.html

but as they've got the dates of Wimbledon wrong, i'm not over-impressed.

<<and the food is just about as perfect as food can be>>

stop making me jealous!!!

Enjoying the report all the same-best ice cream in italy!! i need to go!

Don't be too sad, you have lovely puglia next. Ohh and my vote for your future home is Italy....u can't beat the food.....although having steak frites every day would be tempting too!

On a site note i have just got back from Waitrose and they now do an italian bread range "Crosta & Mollica- just picked up the Pane Pugliese- haven't tasted it but it looks just like the yummy golden stuff we had out there!

Thinking about the density of Dukedoms I guess you have listened to the tales of Monte Guano or the Leopard in Autumn at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s6lgx/episodes/guide

Arrived home to be met with grey skies and rainy weather outlook...SUCKS!!

But back to better times...last week at this time we were arriving in Puglia:


Day Nine – Rumour Has It

The day did not start out well. We woke up and had to pack up our bags and load them into the car. Last night was our final night in Le Marche, and I don’t think either of us where particularly happy about it. We said goodbye to Ashley and Jason and drove down to Piobbico one last time, stopping briefly to have a cappuccino at Il Café del Corso (while stealing a bit of internet to get the GPS coordinates for the next place) before moving on.

We programmed Gazza and set off- Jamie had no idea we could put the coordinates in, despite seeing them on pretty much every website we’ve looked at in the last few years. Oh well. We drove for about an hour before getting to the big onramp to the A14, the Autostrada that would lead us south. They were doing construction at our ramp and diverted us north instead of south. No big deal we initially thought, they must have realized that anyone trying to go to Ancona would want to be going the other way, there must be a diversion route planned.

There was not. We had to drive nearly 20km north to get to the next exit, then pay €1.20 to get off the damn autostrada just to go around a roundabout and get back on. 40km out of our way – Jamie was NOT impressed. She ranted for a bit, until she realized that she sounded like the Kiwi’s who’d been staying this last week complaining about pretty much everything (including being charged €10 for two gelatos in Bologna – how they managed this, I’m not sure, unless they had two large ones perhaps?).

The drive south took about seven hours and was mostly uneventful, other than a few observations made along the way:
1) Italian drivers seem unable to maintain a lane choice – they tend to straddle the line between the lanes, and change somewhat at random
2) People driving light blue Fiat Puntos seem to be unaware of where the accelerator in their car is. A possible alternative explanation is that light blue Fiat Puntos are not fitted with regular engines, instead having a team of small rodents under the bonnet, who can only managed 110km/hr at best. Why the light blue Fiat Puntos are affected and other colours not, I have no explanation
3) Italians would apparently rather drill a tunnel under a hill than go over it, and would rather build a giant bridge over a valley than go down into it. I’m not complaining about this, just an observation
4) Italian radio stations seem to be designed to fade out just as a really good song starts to play; you get through a tunnel; or the news/commercials finish. Every 2nd song played apparently must be “Rumour Has It” by Adele, we heard it at least eight times in the seven hour drive
5) Sticking your hand out the window at 130km/hr when it’s 46˚C outside feels very different than doing the same when it’s 10˚C – this may seem obvious, but it feels very odd
6) In Puglia, rather than cutting the grass on the highway verge, setting it on fire is evidently an acceptable option. Alternatively, it gets so hot here that occasionally the earth itself burst into flame. We’re not sure which at this point

The landscape changed quite dramatically between Central Italy and the south. We said goodbye to the mountains and winding roads and hello to flat straight highways. From the brief view I had, they don’t seem to spend much time ensuring that the outskirts of the cities look nice at all, and everything with even a vague view of the sea has been turned into endless apartment blocks. You may get the impression from the above that I don’t like it here – that’s not true, it’s just such a radically different landscape from La Marche that I’m not quite used to it yet.

We found the Masseria http://www.masseriabaroninuovi.it/en/ with no issue whatsoever – using the coordinates from the website was a revelation! We checked in and almost immediately poured a glass of wine to settle ourselves from the long drive (after dropping off our bags of course). We’d made reservations at the restaurant here so didn’t have to drive off right away.

The restaurant is conveniently located on the other side of the little courtyard, so at 8pm when we started to get hungry we just walked the 20 yards to dinner. Tonight was the Italy v England quarter final match in Euro 2012, so they’d set up a television outside so everyone could watch. There was one other British couple, plus 15 or so Italian fans out to watch the game.

Dinner was good and filling (although ended oddly – the desert course was a GIANT slice of fresh watermelon – tasty, but not what I would’ve expected). The game didn’t go as we’d hoped. England was outplayed for most of the match, but it came down to a penalty shootout in the end, which we lost. Disappointing, but the Italians were pleased. Despite the result it was actually a lot of fun watching it with everyone, and we all had our hands shaken after the loss in a friendly bout of good-natured ribbing.

We’re finishing the night in our really quite comfortable room with wifi and air-conditioning, two things lacking in the last place. Tomorrow looks like it’s going to be another blisteringly hot day, although having looked at the weather reports from home in London, I’m not complaining even a little bit…

(including being charged €10 for two gelatos in Bologna – how they managed this, I’m not sure, unless they had two large ones perhaps?).

lol, biker, last year the local paper where i was staying in southern tuscany had an article about these german tourists who'd been charged [or should that be stung?] €20 for one gelato; but the picture showed an ice-cream of vesuvian proportions. i on the other hand later in the week paid €1.50 for a tub with 2 flavours, and got an italian lesson thrown in!

anyway. never mind about the poxy weather, your masseria looks lovely - which type of room did you stay in? not sure that i fancy the one with the jacuzzi in the middle of the room, to be honest!

I've been following along and have to say I seriously love your trip reports! It's the combo of your writing style and what you're reporting on. I'm seriously considering putting no thought or research into my next trip, but rather pulling up one of your TRs and following your itinerary and bookings. If its possible, I'm even more sorry than you that you're back in London IRL!

Great T/R as always...I am still reading your last Rome report...we leave in like 66 days, Rome ready!

Annhig - we stayed in room 10 - a basic one on the courtyard, but very nice

Sidney - thanks very much, that's a lovely comment, love to hear that sort of thing

Denisea - Thanks for the compliment - Rome is amazing I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time

.....but, but, but - what about your eagerly awaited report
on Matera?

Every morning I come on this site to see the latest pics
and installment; how will I go on without you going on?

Of course, I could write a TR on my very recent trip to
the Veneto/Umbria/ER - but you've set the bar too high so
I'll remain bereft until your next adventure.

Immimi - it's coming, just a few more days...

Day Ten – Apparently They Taste Like Popcorn

Whoever invented air conditioning should be knighted, or sainted, or both. Despite the blistering heat of the day, and the muggy warmth of the evening before we turned in, the air conditioning cooled everything down and we both got an excellent night’s sleep. The only issue occurred first thing in the morning when Jamie woke up and thought that I’d left the light on in the bathroom – it turned out to be the sun blazing in through the open window and shining under the door.

After breakfast at the Masseria, we programmed Gazza for our first stop of the day, Martina Franca, a baroque village about an hour away from here. The roads around here aren’t exactly great, and after much bumping and swerving, we left the highway, where things got tricky. I’m sure there is a relatively direct route to the town, but Gaz was having none of it, instead routing us up and over mountains and down tiny rural roads lined on both sides with tall stone walls. And also through a village where the locals seemed to invent their own rules of the road – frogger in real life! We made it eventually into town and parked immediately, without bothering to see if we were close to the bit we wanted to see.

We weren’t, of course. Much walking and some swearing later we found a map and realized that we were walking in pretty much exactly the wrong direction. Typical. We turned around and walked back up the little hill for a few blocks and turned left instead of right to find a very picturesque little village.

Martina Franca has a baroque centre, with white buildings and narrow alleys criss-crossing through. I’d spent quite a bit of time last week trying to call one restaurant in particular to make reservations (Piazzetta Garibaldi), but only ever got through to what I think was a fax machine (the Italian guy in the office who was doing the translation for me and speaking to the restaurants thought I was crazy for making a reservation in a rural town on a Monday in June, but I was under strict instructions from Jamie and wasn’t about to argue). Fortunately we were the only ones in the restaurant for most of our meal, so the reservation thing wasn’t such a big deal, as it turned out.

The owners of the restaurant were hilarious, and seemed quite excited that we’d stopped by. We ordered the giant antipasti selection to share, then an orecchiette dish as our pasta course to share, and finally a chicken scaloppini and a beef skewer for our mains. The antipasti course was HUGE – between two of us we couldn’t finish everything, although we gave it a good try – there were half a dozen dishes, and we only left a bit of two of them in the end. The orecchiette defeated us – it came with some sort of soft cheese that tasted like English stilton left out in the sun too long, far too strong for either of us. The old guy serving us looked disappointed in our poor showing, but we made up for it with the gusto with which we attacked the main.

After lunch, we wandered around the old part of Martina Franca taking photos, before discovering that it’s actually quite small. They had loads of frames up for what looked like Christmas-style lights that appear to be for all year. After taking our fill of photos, we retraced our steps to find the car and came across what can only be described as a domestic of epic proportions.

First we heard the yelling, although yelling is too mild a word – screaming? Hysterical ranting? This from a few blocks away. We continued walking towards the outburst, as it was between us and the car. As we walked between a house and a gelato place, a young man in his early 20’s by the looks of it came bolting out of the house like the very hounds of hell were after him. He stood behind the rather portly girl who came out of the gelato place and looked as scared as I’ve ever seen anyone – to the point where the hand that he was chewing the fingernails off of was shaking.

Moments later, a rather large gentleman came flying out of the house, pausing to turn around and yell back through the door. Tragically, neither of us speak enough Italian to understand what exactly the issue was, but it was clear that he wasn’t a happy camper. The girl from the gelato place tried to calm him down, but that didn’t work. We all eyed with trepidation the large glass ashtray he was holding. A few tourette-like outbursts from him as we crossed the final few yards of the little piazza and we were out of the danger zone.

Moments later, he stormed back into the house where he commenced in an unholy tirade at the top of his lungs, and let me tell you, he could project his voice. He could also project the glass ashtray, and we saw the detritus of the explosion as it hit the floor cascade across the marble paving. We walked a bit quicker at that point, wondering what the whole issue was about – current theories are include - the big guy found the little guy and his girlfriend/wife in flagrante delecto upon returning home, thus both the rage from the big guy and the fear from the little guy. Alternative theories include the little guy killing someone, getting the blood on the travertine tiles of the big guy’s house (we think blood would probably stain travertine), thus causing the rage every time the big guy went back inside.

We found the car again without any issues, despite parking it halfway to the next village. Again Gaz wanted to see a bit more of the countryside, so the route to our next stop was probably a bit more rural than is normal. Jamie had done some research and found that Alberobello is just about the most touristy place in all of Puglia, so we parked at the first possible spot we found and started walking.

Unfortunately the first spot we found was just beside the bus parking lot, so we got stuck in a large group of cruise tourists in several packs all heading into town at the same time as us. This is not a good place to be.

Alberobello is known for its plethora of Trulli – bizarre little round stone houses with pointy roofs specific to this area for no apparent reason. Theories abound as to why they are round and have pointy roofs, with the most prevalent apparently being that they were easier to dismantle so as to avoid paying taxes, but looking at the size and construction that sound like a big load of bull turds (look at me, I’m being restrained and relatively polite).

I hate bus tour groups with a passion, those that are from cruise ships even more so. They make me frustrated just thinking about them, and this troop seemed to have it out for me, one orange-shirted twit in particular. Jamie and I both take a lot of photos when we travel, other than eating, it’s the main reason for leaving London really. This orange oompa loompa seemed to delight in walking directly into every single shot I tried to take – he managed to ruin at least three consecutive shots, until I was ready to throttle him. We had to take refuge in a wine bar.

Alberobello was interesting, and the trulli were pretty cool, although pretty much every single one had been converted into a tourist shop selling some pretty tragic tourist crap (although no replica swords or crossbows, which is unusual). After taking our photos, we walked back through the heat to the car to drive to our final stop of the day, a city with more “O”’s in the name than any other word in Italian.

Locorotondo is apparently one of the most beautiful villages in all of Italy. It certainly didn’t look like it as we drove in, but we found a spot to park and walked up the hill to the old town. It remained not the most beautiful village in Italy right up until we found the entrance to the old town, when it suddenly changed from a rather average modern Italian town into a quaint little pedestrian village (where there were still cars – roads less than 6 feet wide don’t present any sort of challenge to a full-blooded Italian driver).

We walked around for a while, again snapping photos like they were going out of style. We came across the big church in the centre of town where there was a funeral for a local man going on. The village band was standing around waiting for the end of the service, and the hearse was parked outside.

Some time later, we were sitting at a little café on the main street out of the old town when we heard the village band start up. The café put its sliding doors down halfway just before the band arrived as a sign of respect. The band walked in front of the hearse carrying the coffin, and it seemed most of the village followed after in procession. Other than the somewhat sombre occasion it was actually kind of nice to see how the community came together in mourning for a local man.

Gelato and iced drink finished, we walked back down the hill to collect the car and drive the hour back to the Masseria, stopping briefly to pick up a few bottles of wine for the evening. After the giant lunch we didn’t want to have another giant dinner at the Masseria, so decided to go back and find something in the area.

A quick search showed a pizza place just up the road (literally – 5km on the rural middle of nowhere road, what are the chances?) so at 8pm we drove down to see what it was like. It turned out to be really nice, although 8pm is a bit early for Italians in this part of the country, so we were the only ones there at first. As the evening progressed, a large group of pre-teens arrived for a birthday party, and a large group of woman for some other sort of gathering (we were unable to determine what it was in honour of – they were about evenly distributed between quite attractive young women and not so attractive older women – didn’t seem to be mother/daughter pairs, no idea what was happening).

We finished the night having a glass of wine in the little courtyard at the Masseria, watching the feral cats eat the giant grasshoppers that are jumping around (by giant I mean really big – at least 3 or 4 inches long – they crunch in an appropriately disgusting fashion when the cats eat them) and boggling in disbelief as the new dutch (or possibly German) couple arrived, the man managing to pull his wheelie suitcase directly over the big bowl of citronella candle in the gravel – how his missed seeing it is a mystery, as it actually was ON FIRE. A very good day.

Thank you so much. We are planning for Puglia and this is a joy.

You guys have soo much fun.....I'm still reading along and enjoying the adventures.

Your trip report keeps getting more and more interesting BikerScott and funny. I just love your descriptions - you should really consider becoming an author, your books would be bestsellers for sure.

Interestingly, is not only the landscape in central/northern Italy that is different from that southern Italy but also the temperament of the people,(big guy/small guy incident did make me laugh) more hot-tempered and laisser-faire attitude, especially the way they drive - you can never expect a driver to stop for you at a zebra crossing, and if you attempt to cross you would be at high risk of being run over, that is lesson I learned on day 1 on Sorrento Coast (and also when I used to frequently visit Sicily in my younger days). But the southerners are also extremely friendly and helpful and with less frills than the northeners.

Looking forward to reading more about your holiday.

haha, like the domestic!! u were brave to stick around! be sure to visit ostuni and pogliano a mare if you can!

off to have some gnocci and pretend i'm in puglia!

i think that they were arguing about who burnt the spaghetti!

Very enjoyable! Yes, the North-South dichotomy is something many countries deal with.

More, please!

in some italian circles, the south of Italy is called "il mezzogiorno" or midday, implying that they are always having a siesta, I suppose!

Glad you guys are still with us and enjoying it


Day Eleven – And Then We Ate

Another brilliantly blue sky this morning, although there were a few clouds in the distance, a first for this trip. Breakfast was slightly strange again, with an odd assortment of pastries and savouries, along with some fantastically strong coffee.

We headed out and drove south today, stopping first in Lecce, as we’d heard that it was an interesting town to visit. As with many Italian cities, there is a number of ways to get in to the ring road around the centre, beyond which one does NOT want to go in a car. In the case of Lecce, Gazza took us straight to the ring road and appeared to want us to drive in past it, not a good plan. We found a parking spot but couldn’t for the life of us find anywhere to pay – the only clue was a sign indicating that we could call an Italian number to pay by phone – my Italian isn’t good enough to make reservations for lunch on the phone, let alone pay for parking.

We threw caution to the wind and crossed the ring road with some trepidation. There was a giant marble gate – one of our many rules for Italian driving is “don’t go through any giant marble gates” – this didn’t bode well. Fortunately just before the gate, I spotted a sign for parking, so cut across several lanes of traffic and oncoming cars to speed into a free spot – all Italians looking on gave me nods of approval, the few tourists gasped in horror at my casual disregard for driving etiquette and law.

We locked up the car and walked into the hottest morning and afternoon that I’ve ever experienced. I’m not sure what the temperature actually got to – somewhere in the high 30’s or low 40’s I’d expect, but the humidity was out of this world. 20 minutes into our walk in Lecce and I looked like I’d had a shower, an hour in and I was little more than a puddle.

After stopping for a quick coffee (and wine for Jamie) to cool off a bit, we found the restaurant for lunch – Alle Due Corti. Jamie, the week before we’d left, had made me call a whole bunch of places in Puglia to reserve tables. Most of them didn’t speak English, so I asked an Italian colleague at work to make the calls for me. He couldn’t, for the life of him, work out why we would think that we would have to make reservations for lunch in a relatively small Italian town on a Tuesday afternoon. Jamie insisted, so for the sake of peace and quiet Stefano and I made all the bookings.

We were the only people in the restaurant today – when I said we had a reservation, the waiter exaggeratedly guided us to the only table in the place that had a reserved sign on it, amongst dozens of other empty tables. I laughed, but not out loud where Jamie could hear me.

Lunch was incredible. The chef, Rosalba, is well known for cooking traditional Lecce dishes in the traditional fashion. I had by far the best dish of the trip so far – an old recipe that includes half boiled and half fried noodles with garlic and chick peas. I’m definitely going to make this when I get home. Jamie’s was also pretty damn tasty, and both our mains were good as well.

Other than the brilliant food, the best part about the restaurant was the air conditioning. It gave me a chance to cool down a bit and get my breath back. I had to run cold water over my wrists for a while, and must’ve looked a bit foolish with the bottle of water pressed to my neck, but I was so hot walking around that I was starting to feel a bit light-headed and sick. Bad times.

After lunch we braved the heat again, which didn’t seem quite so bad. We found the Duomo, which evidently has the most beautiful piazza in all of Italy in front of it. I’m not sure I believe that, but if it says it in a guide book well then it must be true. At this point we were done with Lecce, so walked back to the car which had been baking in the sun for a good three hours. Gotta love air-con.

We drove out of town again, still heading south. There are a LOT of empty buildings in this part of Italy, and we can’t figure it out. Many of them seem to either be half-finished or completely finished but have never been used, as far as we can tell. They’re just sitting by the side of the road crumbling away, surrounded in many cases by fences and overgrown bushes. It doesn’t look like there was some sort of property boom that went bust, or if there’s been some sort of deal with builders (money laundering, or government grants) but there are certainly a lot of them around.

We drove down the coast, heading towards Otranto via the coastal road. We stopped about halfway down for a quick walk in the Adriatic – the blues and greens of the ocean are amazing, and the water is so warm it feels like someone’s bath. I wish I’d brought my swim trunks as it seemed a dip in the sea would have been a great way to cool down.

Back into the car for the final push to Otranto. We were both a bit disappointed by the town. I’d heard that it was Moorish in influence, but couldn’t see any signs of it anywhere, and Jamie felt that it was just another touristy seaside town, with all the typical stores selling the typical tourist crap you get everywhere else. The beach in town didn’t look great, and in our wanders there wasn’t really anything that jumped out and caught our interest. We’d paid for three hours worth of parking, but decided after about an hour to head back to the Masseria for a quick nap by the pool before dinner.

We’d planned on going back to Villa Leta for dinner tonight – we didn’t want a meal as heavy as was on offer at the Masseria after the massive lunch we’d had, and Leta’s pizza offering just 5km down the road seemed just about perfect. The only fly in the proverbial ointment was that Villa Leta was closed, as we discovered as we drove up to it, ready for dinner. Ah well, Messagne was just another kilometre up the road, we thought, we’ll go there.

We drove through the slightly grotty outskirts of town and quickly found a parking spot just near the giant marble gate indicating the entrance to the old town. We took a quick look around before walking through to the old marble streets and found what turned out to be not the quaintest town we’ve been in, but quite a nice one nevertheless. There were loads of people about, and all were locals rather than hordes of tourists.

Jamie stopped to take some photos of the big church in the old town while I scouted out possibilities for dinner. The one I eventually picked was chosen as it appeared to be quite full of Italian families, all of whom appeared to be enjoying their meals. There was no menu that I could see, but what could go wrong I thought? I asked the owner (or at least the guy that appeared to be the owner) if there was room for two, and he agreed that there probably was. I explained that I had to go collect my wife but would be back.

When we arrived back at the restaurant 5 minutes later, the guy I’d spoken to and a waiter were in the process of moving a table out from inside and setting up some chairs around it. We sat down, and he came over to take our orders, still no menus in sight. He asked if we spoke Italian, and when we said only a very little bit, he shrugged and made sure to speak in Italian very slowly and clearly – we understood enough to get what he was talking about, which was actually kind of fun.

Our enthusiasm for the Italian and the novelty of the situation got the better of us – we each ordered the house antipasti, a pasta course, and a meat course. The antipasti alone consisted of 10 dishes - ricotta, mozzarella, grilled courgette, fresh sardines, deep fried things (including potato, mussels, cheese, etc), baked mussels, delicious dough balls, octopus, smoked salmon, and aubergine parmigiana! By the time the pasta course arrived, which was excellent by the way, we were already full. The meat course was a bridge too far and we only managed half of it each before giving up. We finished the meal with a glass of homebrew laurel liquor – we had no idea what it was, so the waiter brought out a sample of the herb that it was made from – turned out to be bay leaf liquor. Strong doesn’t even begin to describe it, but tasty.

The last adventure of the night was to be getting back home in the dark. As we’d originally planned to eat at Villa Leta, which is only 5km down a straight road, we didn’t bother bringing the sat nav. When we drove into Messagne, it was down a one-way street with no clear indication of how to get back. I was a bit nervous, as our place was difficult enough to find in the daylight even with a sat nav, although Jamie was confident.

We set out, heading straight out of town in a completely different direction than we’d come in. We saw a sign for the highway, and Jamie insisted that we take it – I was afraid we’d end up in Bridisi or Bari and have to spend the night there. We got up on the highway and took the next exit, only a kilometre away, down onto our road. Jamie’s sense of direction is pretty damn good I must say – better than mine at any rate, I could get lost in a room with no doors.

We got back to the Masseria at 11:30, our latest night out yet. A glass of wine, some photo editing and trip report writing, and we’re well past our bedtime. Jamie has promised me that as I’m staying up late to write this, we’re allowed to sleep in tomorrow morning. I think we’re going to need to.

And my photos from our week in Puglia, hope you enjoy!!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151842424355462.868588.805595461&type=3&l=1e83b59fbb

annhig - we stayed in a classic room. Nothing fancy, but it had AC, a huge bathroom and a comfy bed. Perfect for what we needed!

The people were very friendly and it was a great central location to visit all the areas we wanted to.

Thank you for those wonderful photos. I was able to travel to Italy for awhile. -

Oh, yum, yum, yum!!!! Now, I'm going to have to go eat dinner!

Fantastic photos, jamikins!

<< all Italians looking on gave me nods of approval >>

LOL, BikerScott! I could just picture it. You're fitting right in, eh?

Thanks to you both! Looking forward to more.

“We were the only people in the restaurant today – when I said we had a reservation, the waiter exaggeratedly guided us to the only table in the place that had a reserved sign on it, amongst dozens of other empty tables. I laughed, but not out loud where Jamie could hear me.”

Bikerscott & Jamie LOL- that is funny!

What a great trip report with pics to support. Thanks for sharing.

And another set of stunning photos! I just wanted to reach through my computer screen and grab the glass of prosecco and tasty nibbles that were all only €6.50! YUM!

Lovely pics - thanks for sharing them with us. The food and ice-cream look so yummy, Italian food is heavenly.

You planned your holiday to perfection - well done!!

Thanks for continuing and sharing pics!

I noticed those cone shaped roofs in Arobello had designs on them. Do you know what they mean?

The Adriatic looks beatiful and so inviting! I think with the temps you describe, I would have been tempted to go in clothes and all. Or worse yet, strip down and go in. (Not a pretty sight to imagine!)

hey guys...wow it sounds like it was rather hot!!! did u like ostuni? i thought the church facade was so pretty

isnt it strange how the restaurants are so so empty!!

We loved Ostuni - but seriously ALL the restaurants were empty! We asked someone in Matera when the high season was and they said April/May - its too hot to travel there now hahaha!!!

Day Twelve – Still Finding Sand

My internal alarm clock woke me exactly 5 minutes before the alarm was scheduled to go off at 10am. Jamie had been awake since 8:30 evidently, but was enjoying the sound of my snoring so much she let me sleep in. We didn’t have much on the agenda for the day, so didn’t rush about too much getting ready. Jamie did go and get me a mug of the insanely strong “American” coffee and a pastry from the breakfast cart as I was getting ready (she had chocolate cake, a suitable breakfast selection apparently).

We drove north again, heading for the seaside this time. Our only destination for the day was the town of Polignano a Mare between Bari and Brindisi. Given our recent experiences of Puglian coastal beach towns, we weren’t expecting much, and I don’t think we were disappointed.

The parking lots were clearly designed for much busier times of year – we think that the Romans must descend on Puglia in August when they all go on holiday. As it is in late June most places are pretty well deserted. We were the only ones in the entire parking lot, at least the only ones parking in the little blue boxes, there were a few bangers wedged under various trees about the place.

It was close to noon at this point, a bit early for lunch. We started with a wander through the town with a half-baked notion that a gelato was in order. Once we walked through the big marble arch at the entrance to the old town, it seemed that gelato shops were not to be found, although we did find loads of scenic outlooks down the cliff that Polignano is built on (although not the beach – apparently we were just about on top of it, but it was around the corner and thus we couldn’t see it).

The cliff looks a bit dangerous to me – years of waves crashing against it have worn out giant caverns and holes. To be fair, it probably isn’t dangerous in any way, especially as the most famous restaurant of the region is built right inside one of these holes – from what we’ve heard it’s incredibly expensive but the food isn’t great, almost worth it for the view though. We weren’t able to validate this claim as it hadn’t opened for the day yet, although in retrospect we may have been able to go for lunch had we waited another half hour.

As it was, we found another restaurant just up the road and around the corner – forget what the name was in Italian, but the translation is “my grandmother’s kitchen” or something similar (a quick search shows that it was Trattoria Della Nonna). We were there at 12:30 but were told that they wouldn’t open until 1pm. We walked right across town to while away the half hour, and weren’t overly impressed. While there were a lot of people about, it wasn’t a particularly nice part of town, and the far side especially seemed to be comprised of huge empty parking lots and apartment buildings either just built and empty or being built.

We walked back and sat down for lunch, the ordering of which turned into a bit of a fiasco. Firstly, the waiter didn’t seem overly impressed that we were there. For the first time on this trip, there was a bit of attitude which was not at all appreciated. We then tried to order – I wanted the orchietti as a first course, but was told that they would only do pasta if at least two people ordered the same thing – Jamie wasn’t interested in pasta, so I had to choose something else. I picked the proscuitto, but was told that they were out of it. I asked for a minute to reconsider, and then went for the braesola. I then asked for the fresh fish as a main course, a reasonable request seeing as this was a seafood restaurant. It transpired that they were completely out of fresh fish. Jamie was ready to leave at this point, but I persevered. I ordered fried calamari as a last option, which they had.

Jamie’s selections were all available, but maybe not exactly what she’d bargained on. Her main course was a mixed fried seafood platter. She was expecting I think nicely portioned bits of seafood, dipped in batter and fried. What she got was seafood dipped in batter and fried, but not portioned in any way. On her plate were half a dozen full shrimps, shells, heads, tails, legs and all. Plus a few whole (if small) fish, again battered and fried. She did her best, even going so far as to eat a few of the shrimp including shells, but I think was a bit defeated by the plate.

After lunch we stopped outside town for a gelato and walked back up the hill to the car. Again, I had forgotten to leave the windows cracked, so we had to wait 5 minutes for the air conditioning to catch up before we could get in, and even so I very nearly burned my hand on the gear shifter.

We’d seen a few nice-looking beaches on the drive up, and I’d cleverly packed my swim trunks for the day, so on the way back to Mesagne, we took a turnoff and drove to one of the many beach resort thingies – for €4 we parked our car in a covered parking spot (well, covered by a netting strung between trees, but it kept the sun off .anyway) and sat on the beach for an hour or so. I changed into my swim suit and swam in the Adriatic for a while until I managed to get most of the sea up my nose as a result of miss-timing a jump over a particularly large wave.

After getting our fill of sun and sand (and getting sand in some very awkward places I can tell you – those waves distribute it a little too freely, if you get my meaning), we stopped at the little café for a quick iced lemon granite while I dried off before setting back towards the Masseria for a quick drink, and a little more sun and reading. We finished the day back at Villa Leta for another pizza night.

Scott & Jamie, continuing to follow your adventure. So much of the architecture reminds me of Sicily. Enjoy...

Day Thirteen – Viva Italia!

We managed to have yet another sunny morning with not a cloud in the sky. Our check of weather in London shows that it’s relatively cold and overcast, with a chance of rain. It is actually 20˚C colder at home today than it is in this part of Italy. We don’t want to leave, really.

Today’s mission was the white city of Ostuni, just off the coast between Bari and Brinisi, not far from Martina Franca. Gazza was playing nice today and routed us through the closest town (other than Mesagne) of San Vito dei Normanni, where we found a convenient supermercati to replenish toothpaste, shampoo, and most importantly deodorant supplies (it turns out the travel sized portions of all three will last two travellers just less than two weeks – an important tip to keep in mind).

We followed Gaz all the way to the start of the cobbles at Ostuni, and then decided to park on the road rather than follow his directions to the parking lots, as that would violate one of our inviolate rules of Italian driving. We parked in one of the white-lined zones, thus avoiding the pesky payment for parking one finds in those exclusive blue zones, but requiring a walk to the main touristic part of Ostuni.

A note on the inviolate rules of Italian driving – there are several, and they are not to be violated:
1) never drive on a cobblestone portion of a town or village,
2) never drive through a grand marble arch into a village,
3) never actually follow the speed limit, these are only suggestions, to be modified as local conditions permit
4) if it looks like a pothole, it is probably deep enough to remove a good portion of your car’s undercarriage – slow down and look foolish rather than power over it and have to call a tow truck,
5) lines on the road are for amateurs, be creative,
6) don’t stop when entering roundabouts, the other cars will almost always let you in
6a) pay for the additional insurance when hiring your car, it’ll be worth it in the long run
6b) this one wasn’t serious, if you follow rule 6 you will get into an accident, an Italian person will yell at your quite a bit, and the Carabinieri will too. You have to be somewhat aggressive, but don’t just close your eyes and aim, as this will only end in tears. It is, however, a good idea to consider the extra insurance, because Italian drivers are almost all insane and will try to kill you and damage your car.

The free parking worked out quite well as it turned out – we had to walk a little farther than if we’d gone to the pay parking, but a) it was free, b) we didn’t have to walk up the giant hill that we would’ve had to if we’d gone to the pay lot, and c) the best scenic views of Ostuni were from just beside where I’d found the parking. Result on all fronts really.

Ostuni is known as the White City, and it lives up to it’s billing. Despite being on a hill, it’s actually quite manageable for the lazy tourist as the interesting central bit is relatively small, so not a lot of uphill walking is required. After a fortifying espresso served with a glass of ice (for a homemade iced coffee of course) or two, we ventured into town and its hill.

The cathedral on the top of the hill required a donation for entrance, and while I pretty much always leave a few euros on a voluntary basis when I go into a church, I refuse to do so when it’s a requirement. Not logical, I realize, but that’s just how I am. While it was hot up at the top, I think we’ve almost become accustomed to the heat, as it didn’t seem to affect us much as it has in the past.

There wasn’t much at the top of the hill, so we started back down, looking for somewhere to have lunch. As someone once said, never eat on the piazza, that’s for the tourists – we managed to find a little tratoria down one of the tiny side roads that seemed to fit the bill – if nothing else, it smelled amazing when we went in, and that counts for quite a bit.

Lunch was huge and quite good – a pasta course to start for both of use (orchietti two ways, which was an interesting comparison), then fish for Jamie and a translation mixup for me which turned out to be quite nice – I’d thought tagliata was a type of pasta, but it turns out it’s thinly sliced beef with olive oil and spices. Both our mains were excellent. Sadly, my two cokes cost quite a bit more than Jamie’s two glasses of wine, but as I was driving I think it was a few euros well spent.

While Ostuni is an interesting town and worth a visit, there isn’t actually that much to see there, so after lunch we got back in the car and drove the few miles to the pre-Roman excavations at Egnazia. We’re suckers for roman excavations, and while they all look similar, I don’t think we’d pass up stopping at a good Roman town. This may be due to all the roman historical fiction we’ve read (Steven Saylor, Simon Scarrow, Jack Whyte, etc) over the last few years.

Jamie commented on the size of the excavations – it seems that pretty much all the ruins we’ve ever seen are of relatively small town, there aren’t any big towns that have been discovered. I pointed out that all the big towns survived (Bari, Brindisi, etc) and we wondered what it was about each that made it survive while these others faded away into obscurity. It all seems so random, although there must have been reasons for it 2000 years ago. What will they think of our modern cities 2000 years from now, and how much (or little) of what we’ve built will last as long as what the ancients built has?

We’d planned on having dinner at a typical barbeque place in Cisternino, but after the huge lunch, neither of us thought that we’d be even remotely approaching hungry by the time of our reservations at 6:30. We programmed Gazza for our Masseria and instead spent a few hours basking in the late afternoon sun by the pool, before getting ready for dinner.

Tonight was the semi-final game between Italy and Germany in the Euro 2012 championship – we’d been here for the Italy v England quarterfinal when Italy knocked out England, so felt that we had to watch the semis. The Masseria had brought in a giant projection tv complete with huge screen and professional sound system for the event. The front rows were taken by family, with the back half reserved for guests. All were Italian other than us and a very quiet father/son combo who I think were German.

It was quite entertaining, both watching the match on the tv and the Italians all around us. In particular, the grandfather of the family group was deeply into the game; both Jamie and I were concerned that he would have some sort of coronary event with all the jumping and yelling he was doing.

Fortunately Italy won, thanks in no small part to the efforts of Super Mario Balotelli and keeper Gianluigi Buffon, who should be given a medal of some sort for his performance. We thought we were going to face a major dilemma, as I thought the final would be played on Saturday night, when we have reservations for an 8 course tasting menu, which Jamie would not be happy to miss. It turns out the final is Sunday, so it’s a take-away curry at home in London with the sound turned up high on the stereo system.

Hope everyone is still following along!


Day Fourteen - Dodgem, Frogger, and Crashup Derby in Italy

So much for the whole sleeping-in plan – Jamie made me get up at 8:45 this morning, which as previously mentioned, is far too early for a holiday. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t mind all that much this morning, as we’re getting to the last few days of our holiday and apparently my subconscious mind is starting to get ready to go back to work – I spent most of the night having terrible dreams about the office. I dislike it enough while I’m actually there, let alone while on holiday.

Today turned out to be a bit of a driving day. We’d booked a guided tour of the village of Matera, a few hours almost due west from Mesagne (pronounced the same as lasagne apparently). The drive wasn’t too bad really until we got fairly close – of the two hour trip, the last quarter in terms of time was to get about 1/8th of last bit of distance. The roads in this part of Italy are really shocking. I keep thinking of my Ferrari (not yet purchased, still waiting for that lottery win to come through) and that I wouldn’t bring it down here – not only would I remove most of the undercarriage, but with the stiff racing suspension my back wouldn’t thank me for it.

Gazza was playing a bit of silly buggers today. At one point he wanted us to take an exit off the highway just to take the connected onramp – no point other than a brief detour. When we got right into Matera things got a bit hairy. As with a lot of Italian towns in the countryside, Matera has been built right at the top of a great bloody hill. I’m a big fan of hills in general, when seen from a distance in a picturesque manner, but not when I’m trying to either walk up them or drive up them in a manual transmission car.

We finally got to the top, and throwing caution to the wind, I broke one of our cardinal rules of Italian driving (never drive into the cobbled bits of towns) and drove into the cobbled bit of town. Fortunately, some very nice men wearing what looked like official Matera tourist board shirts stopped me just as I got into the centre and asked if I was in town for a tour. I said lunch to start then a tour, and asked if there was any parking around.

Being the kind gentlemen that they were, they pushed a parked scooter out of it’s parking spot in the taxi bay (they didn’t own the scooter, just moved it a bit) so that I could park up. I was a bit unsure about parking in the reserved taxi spot, but they assured me that it was fine, so in a rather brilliant display of precision parallel parking, I got the car in without so much as a bump on any other cars. We stepped out of Giancarlo and that’s when the realization hit – these weren’t tourist board t-shirts, these were a band of creative and resourceful touts who’d had shirts printed up to look official! The audacity.

They were very keen for Jamie and me to try their favourite trattoria just up the road, and even offered to set us up with a tour guide of the Sassi. He was a bit disappointed I think when we explained that we already had a reservation for lunch, and that we’d pre-booked a tour guide. He exclaimed that he’d gone ahead and moved a scooter for us, I reply simply with a rather well-executed French shrug (I’ve learned this through innumerable trips to France, where they’ve elevated the humble shrug to an art, able to convey as much with the simple gesture as the English can with the word f**k). He was not impressed with the finesse in my shruggery, and stormed off.

We quickly found our trattoria for lunch and asked for a table inside, as the heat of the day was a bit stifling - we’ve heard that the region is scheduled for a heat-wave from Africa tomorrow – what we’ve got now isn’t a heat wave???

(If you have delicate sensibilities, or are easily offended, please skip ahead as the following may not be to your taste) I may burst into flames if it gets much hotter, and the swass, swack, and swalls will be unpleasant to say the least. Jamie and I have developed a series of code words on our trips to climates fairer than ours. It started with swass, a combination of the words “SWeaty” and another word which I won’t elaborate on – I’m sure you can guess. As time went on, and the heat got hotter, we added swack to the lexicon – again a combination of SWeaty, this time combined with “bACK”. I don’t think I need to explain what swalls are, or swoobs. I’ve mentioned in the past that we’re a bit juvenile, haven’t I?

Lunch was excellent, if a bit filling. Jamie had the best pasta dish of the trip in her opinion (ravioli with a rather generous portion of fresh truffles shaved over the top, for just €10 if you can believe that). As usual, we overate. We really have to remember to order a primi to share and a secondi to share or just one course if we’re going to have our own. I used to be afraid that the restaurateurs would be upset, but now I’m just greedy and forget. We lingered over lunch, giving ourselves time to cool off, and also because we had a good three hours until our tour was scheduled to start.

After finishing our prolonged lunch we still had about an hour before our tour, so after checking on the car (it had been left right next to the big piazza in a taxi zone after all, but was fine) we found the Tripoli Café to have a café freddo, a prosecco for Jamie, and a HUGE bowl of really tasty gelato while we waited for Nadia the tour guide. The Tripoli Café is a bit of a gem, not least because they have one of those giant fans that spray a fine mist of water as it blows. We’ve only ever seen them in Greece before, but they’re wonderful. The hour wait wasn’t quite as stifling as it could have been, and gelato makes everything just a bit better.

As 3pm arrived we stood up to wait at the designated spot in front of the fountain – we met fellow tourists and Fodorites WellTraveledBrit and partner (LessTraveledGit as he prefers to be known). Soon after, Nadia arrived and we were off!

The Sassi of Matera is a bit of a dark spot on southern Italian history. The literal translation is the “Stone of Matera” – in fact it’s two separate but connected communities who until recently lived in a series of caves in the cliffs below Matera. By recently, I mean just that – the last family was finally convinced to leave in 1968. And by caves, I couldn’t be more literal – there was no electricity, no running water, no plumbing, and entire families lived in holes dug out of the soft rock, sometimes 15 people plus assorted pigs, sheep, chickens, donkeys, horses, and other livestock (really not kidding about this, evidently the pigs and chickens lived under the bed to provide warmth) living in holes 20 square metres big.

The caves are thought to be some of the earliest dwellings in Italy – some date back nearly 9000 years – how many can claim to be living in a room that has been inhabited that long? The living conditions were appalling, and according to Nadia the infant mortality rate was officially 50% but unofficially though to be closer to 80%. Since 1980, the Italian government has been trying to get some of the original Sassi inhabitants to move back to the caves, although much has been done to modernize them, including the addition of electricity, running water, plumbing, and external walls and windows to make the dwellings habitable by modern standards.

It’s shocking as one walks through the Sassi to think of what life must have been like not that long ago. We often take for granted the convenience of our lives, little thinking of the privations of so many. The extension of this thought is that this sort of living was eradicated from this part of Italy in 1968, however in many parts of the world today, people are still living in just this sort of poverty, if not worse. Enough sermonizing.

The tour was fantastic, and at more than three hours, gave us a really good look into life in the Sassi. Nadia was excellent and very informative, letting us take as much time as we wanted poking around and stopping constantly to take photos. There is much to see in the Sassi, and I’d highly recommend a guide if you really want to see it.

The tour wrapped up at about 6:30pm (not bad for a start time of 3pm) and conveniently for us, just in front of the car. We said goodbye to Nadia and our fellow tourists and started up the car. Gazza wasn’t done having a laugh at our expense.

I’ve neglected to mention that July 1st is a feast day in Matera, and the town was getting ready. Lights were up all over the place, and the main street through town was being converted into a market. Gaz, offended in some way I think, felt that the fastest way back to the Masseria was directly through the madness of the centre of town. It was not fun driving, made worse by the Italian disregard for the rules of the road. I did well I think getting out of town, in that I didn’t kill any pedestrians who walked out into the middle of the street without warning, crash into any of the cars who turned left in front of me, or decided to stop in the middle of the road for no apparent reason.

After getting out of town, the drive home was easy. We weren’t in the mood to spend a lot of time looking for a place to eat, and weren’t actually all that hungry – it sounded like a final night at Villa Leta was in order. You just can’t go wrong with a good pizza, a good bottle of wine, and a straight 5km drive home.

"gelato makes everything just a bit better"

Words to live by indeed.

swalls and swoobs- haha, we might pinch those codes!!!

we also could never resist ordering more food than necessary and also saw the delight in a simple pizza and beer!!

its a shame as we used ti love our local village pizza here in surbiton, but now it never quite lives up to il tronco in puglia!!

i;m not sure i could cope with that heat so bravo!!

More, please.

You guys totally crack me up. Swoobs and Swalls, I understand and appreciate the humor (it also reminds me of an Alec Baldwin, Molly Shannon and Ana Gasteyer SNL skit, Schweaty B@*%s).
You are always great fun to travel with!

I remember on another thread ( eks?) that Nadia said that she had grown up in Maters but had not known about the sassi until adulthood. I am not one ofr guides generally, but she sounds like a winner.
We are thinking about a night or two in Matera as I hear it is wonderful after dark.

jubilada - i remembered something like that being said too.

annhig, it is hard to imagine. You can see the sassi from the new town, so it must mean that she knew the caves were there but hadn't seen them or known people lived in them. I wonder those kids didn't go to school???

Hey guys,

No they didn't interact at all and the kids didn't go to school until very recently. The sassi had two different sections and even they didn't interact with each other. They never interacted with the new town folks.

Families had many many children and the parents would in many cases leave the kids at home for days on end overnight all alone to fend for themselves and many died. The official child death rate was 50% but they think in reality it could be up to 80%. There was no running water, no sanitation, and the animals lived in the house with them. This only changed very recently when they basically forced the people living there to move to the new city due to the sanitation issues.

The sassi were empty for years but the government now gives incentives to people who renovate and open businesses there so they have been in many cases remodelled with working plumbing.

It's very surreal and very sad!!

I'm trying to get to the end of this great trip report, but it is chock-a-block with great detail and much laughter.


I'm not at the end yet, and I realize that this last bit is a really striking story to hear happening in the latter half of the 20th century, but how good to at least know about it.

...We stayed in a cave hotel on a cold, wet night; they had
dehumifiers running all the time to try to control the streams
of condensation rolling down the walls. Winters must have been absolute hell in the sassi.

Looking out over the chasm at night was a sight I will never
forget - it's such a hauntingly beautiful place - at least
for a visitor from the 21st century.

The sassi were a sight to behold. We were so glad we had a tour, it made the town really come alive!

Day Fifteen – Driving in the Dark

As it was the last full day of our holiday, there wasn’t a lot on our itinerary, so we managed one last lie-in. Our plan included a trip down to Gallipoli for a visit (the Italian Gallipoli, not the one in Turkey), and dinner at a Masseria just north of Ostuni, and that was it.

The promised hot weather actually arrived and the mercury was topping 35 at 11am when we finally left the room. The drive down was, as with so many of the drives in this part of Italy, not particularly scenic. Gaz took us straight to the town for a change with no bizarre detours through side-roads or off-ramps. We even managed to find a parking spot just this side of the causeway to the historic centre on its island, and even better, it was free.

We were forced by heat to stop for a gelato before crossing the causeway. In addition to the temperature, the wind itself was hot, and the humidity had gone up that close to
the sea. The gelato helped, as it does with so many things. We had an entertaining view of what appeared to be a traffic warden trying to direct traffic at the roundabout just before the causeway, although he didn’t seem to be doing much other than trying to look official (tucking his ears into his cap didn’t help with looking official, it made him look like a small schoolboy in a borrowed uniform).

At one point, two men in a small Fiat decided to park pretty much in the roundabout itself so they could go have a coffee. An argument ensued, which we observed with great interest. Who would win? The official in the uniform, who was clearly correct in pointing out that the middle of the roundabout was a no-parking zone? Or the burly Italian parker whose counter argument (as far as we could discern from the gesticulations) was that he wasn’t actually blocking traffic as such, and he was just going to be in the café beside the car if there were any problems. In North America, the argument wouldn’t have happened in the first place, but if it did, the official would have won, no contest. As this is southern Italy, the car remained where it was, the burly gentleman had his coffee, and the official tucked his ears up a bit farther under his cap.

Gallipoli is an interesting town, in a tourist sort of way. There is the expected street of souvenir shops selling the same crap you can find in any other seaside town in most of the world I expect, only this crap has “Gallipoli” painted on the side. The side-streets, however, are rich with local life. There were tiny grocery stores clearly catering to locals, houses with families going about their daily lives, and even a wedding in procession down one of the sidestreets for photos.

We wandered around for a bit before deciding it was time for lunch. We found a restaurant just above the beach area that had a nice view over the water, if nothing else. We haven’t really had a good fish meal so far on this trip, despite spending a full week on or near the coast. We threw caution to the wind as it was our last day, and each ordered the fish of the day, which didn’t have a final price, just a price per 100grams. It could have gone very badly for our credit card balance.

As it turned out, the branzino (sea bass) was very tasty indeed, and while a good size for each of us, not enough to break the bank. In fact, it was only €40 for both fish, which I don’t think is really that bad. To be honest, it was worth almost that much for the view alone over the blue and green waves for an hour or so.

After lunch we took a walk on the beach itself. It wasn’t the nicest beach in the world – not very big, loads of stuff in the water (plastic bags, etc), and fairly cloudy water at that. We puddled around for a few minutes, then decided we’d had enough of the Gallipoli seaside for the day.

The walk back to the car was a bit of a trial – very little shade as it was the middle of the day, and the heat was on full. I’m not complaining, as I love the heat, however I think Jamie was ready to melt (from a distance I probably looked like I was literally melting – sweat pouring from pretty much every pore, not a pleasant sight). The car was baking hot, thankfully the A/C kicks in amazingly quickly in little Giancarlo. After a brief disagreement with Gaz, we were back on the highway heading back to the Masseria for an early afternoon.

I managed a nap for an hour or so, as that seems to be the way things are done in Italy, while Jamie read. If it’s going to be that hot, it’s the only way to survive I think. After the worst of the afternoon sun had passed, we moved to the pool to catch a few more rays and read for an hour or so.

Dinner was booked at a Masseria a couple of kilometres north of Ostuni. We headed out for the 30 minute drive about 30 minutes before we needed to, thinking that giving ourselves a 30 minute buffer would be plenty, even given the condition of the roads in Italy. What we hadn’t counted on was Gaz wanting another laugh at our expense.

He felt that the fastest way to the Masseria would be directly through the centre of Ostuni, as they were having some sort of festival in the main square, complete with full stage, sound system, seating, etc. It’s worth noting that the main road through Ostuni passes through this square. It was unpleasant. There were people everywhere, randomly crossing the road with no warning and generally without looking to see if there was a car (me) coming. As bad as the pedestrians were, the other drivers were worse. As traffic was bad, they threw what little caution they had to the wind to try to get where they were going as quickly as they could. It was pandelerium, however due to my extraordinary driving skills we survived, and made it to dinner only 15 minutes late (that’s right, a 30 minute drive took 1 hour 15).

The Masseria Il Frantoio was beautiful. They’d clearly spent a lot of time restoring it – having said that it is quite a bit more expensive than ours. As we were late, we missed the guided tour, but managed to catch the last little bit, including the section where they tried to sell us some olive oil. After the tour was dinner.

This particular Masseria is evidently known for the quality of their food, and dinner didn’t disappoint. For €59 each we had an eight-course meal, complete with two bottles of wine and as much water as we wanted. The dishes themselves were quite good, with the octopus and zucchini plate being the clear winner. The only issue I had with the meal is that it featured the local cuisine, which is very good and proper, however the local cuisine is “cucina povera”, or poor food, maybe not conducive to the style of presentation that I think they were looking for. That being said, it was all quite tasty, and the service was impeccable.

The drive home was a bit of a nightmare. We’d spent quite a bit of time at dinner, and didn’t leave until midnight. This part of Italy is DARK at night, as there don’t seem to be any street lights other than right in the centre of town. Gaz tried to take us back through Ostuni again, but we told him to piss off and followed the signs for the highway. Even that was unlit, which made for an interesting drive at 120km/hr.

Our last night in Italy and I think we’re both a bit sad to be leaving, and not just because London is the middle of the worst June in recorded history apparently. We’ve had a great trip, and are looking forward to planning our next adventure in Italy, preceded by some Italian lessons for both of us.

Bravo, great trip! So sorry that it's coming to an end.

Can't wait for your next trip -

loved the report- brought me back to our trip.....eh london's not so bad, its actually still very warm so the rain is a nice cooler!

get what you mean re il frantoio and local cuisine.

Well, I imagine you are home again in London now. Thanks for sharing a wonderful trip and making me laugh every day.

yes - I hope that you are enjoying the tennis and the SUNSHINE!

[RATS - we've got rain - again!]

Excellent and great to read about less travelled-to places.

...another very 'tasty' TR has come to an end, sigh, I hope
you are busily planning your next one. Going to be fun to
read about your Greek sailing adventure...but it's the land-
based ones I love! Thanks for the terrific writing and the
stellar photos.

Well, another trip has come and gone and we are back in rainy London (seriously this rubbish weather is ridiculous - enough already!!!)

We had an amazing time and cannot wait to get back to Italy!

Some final thoughts:

It was great to see areas off the 'tourist track'. There were barely any crowds and it was great not to have to fight to sit down or get through a square. Very refreshing.

The areas we visited were amazing, but a bit more 'challenging'. Places like Florence, Rome, Venice, Assisi etc lay out their jewels for all to see. Tuscany is a beautiful vista around every corner. Cinque Terre and Amalfi Coast are just begging for people to admire their lovely coastlines. Puglia and Le Marche make you look a bit harder, especially Puglia. The jewels are there, you just have to search them out. They arent the big ticket items in general, and you sometimes need to look past the oil refinery while admiring the lovely olive grove hahahaha!

The people are soo friendly! Even in areas where no english was spoken people went out of their way to communicate.

The drivers are crazy. Seriously. There are no 'rules' just 'suggestions'! However everyone knows the acceptable practices and as long as everyone follows them then everyone is fine. Remember - you can park anywhere hahaha.

Next on our trip agenda is a two week sailing trip in the Dodeconese. I dont think it will be a day by day live report due to internet access challenges, but we will of course be documenting the journey in print and photos and will post on our return or when we get access.

Next in Italy I think we want to visit Naples next spring for a long weekend and then New Years 2013 we are planning a week in Tuscany in the country. Will be interesting to see Tuscany in winter when the tourists are gone, and we can cozy up to our fireplace and discover villages and towns when they are filled with locals. Not your typical time to go so could be interesting hahahaha!

Thanks for following along! We love sharing with all of you and look forward to the planning all year round!!

Oh and forget Sicily in Sept 2013 for two weeks. Addicted to Italy!!!

Sigh - sorry, FORGOT (not forget) Sicily!

wow i love that im not the only one who plans so far in advance!! loved he report....thinking of a trip to le marche!! but excited about our paxos trip first!!

Thanks for taking the time to write this terrific trip report & post your beautiful photos. It's always fun to following along with the 2 of you. I was considering a driving trip in Sicily in 2013, but now you have instilled the the fear of God in me for ever trying to drive in Italy!

Haha LowCountry...as long as you follow THEIR rules you will be fine!!!

Glad you guys enjoyed the trip...now off to work boo!!

Loved the trip report, you two! Thanks so much for sharing. Welcome back to the real world.

Enjoyed reading another wonderful trip report by you two.

Thanks for spending the time and sharing your great travelling stories. I loved touring along with you. I'll look forward to the next trip.

Thank you!

Any final photos to share with us, Jamikins?

Thanks for coming along for the ride...

Joannyc - Scott has all his photos to post so will be sure to add them to the link...just have to harrass him to get them posted!

Thanks for a great report.I am thinking of adding Puglia to next years trip but without a car it is beginning to look impossible.
I am the 82 year old senior who travels alone. This forum has been very helpful in sugestions in the past.
I have been researching staying in 1 city and doing guided day trips. Not my preferance but it may be the only way that I can visit this section of Italy .
Any suggestions or ideas?

Hmmm it would be quite tricky by train - it is not well seviced by trains. however we did see lots of buses, so that may be an option. I would base myself in a larger town like say Lecce or Taranto as they are likely to have more bus services.

You could try looking up these bus companies and see if they have timetables that may work:

Marozzi: www.marozzivt.it
Marino Bus: www.marinobus.it
Sita: www.sitabus.it
Miccolis: www.miccolis-spa.it

Good luck, its a beautiful area!

It's so easy to get hooked on Italy, eh? On two of our favorite trips, we based in Spoleto and Perugia and bussed/trained to towns in those areas. We hired a driver for Montalchino and Montepulciano--you drive though so you'd have even more flexibility.

Sicily will add to your repetoire of Italian driving! You have a bachelor's degree in it now; after Sicily, a PhD!

Thanks for your quick response.
My ticket to Rome is bought, I used frequent flyer miles so I had to book early. I have researched buses from Rome to the Puglia area and that seems to be an option.
Thanks for additional bus lines that I do not know about.
Probably my best bet is to base myself in 1 town perhaps Lecce or Brindisi and see if day tours to surrounding areas are available , if not hire a private driver to take me to the towns that I am interested in visiting. Not sure if this will be within my budget.
I am planning the trip for next spring and the only given is flying into Rome.
I usually find that the planning of my trips is fun and educational.
Again thanks.

I think there is a (fast?) train to Lecce and probably other stops from Rome. That would be the fastest way (other than a connecting flight from Rome to Bari or Brindisi). Check out routes on www.trenitalia.it

There really did seem to be quite a few buses, likely for commuters so check the timetables and see if they work for you!

We found food a lot cheaper so maybe that can loosen the budget a bit!

Great trip report, I and Mrs Bilbo bicycled through Ostuni a few years ago and wondered why small hill A became a city while small hill B had failed to develop beyond a farm.

Thanks Bikerscott and Jamikins for the lovely trips report. I enjoyed reading every single word, really interesting and funny at the same time. I could easily envisage every single visit to the towns you described, just as I always imagined Puglia. You really have the skills of an author, Bikerscott, and Jamikins thanks so much for the photos you posted, really really nice of you.

Your description of driving in southern Italy is spot on. You really made me laugh. It really reminded me of one holiday when we drove from Naples to Vico Equense on New Year's Eve, in the afternoon, and our Gaz had taken us to centre of towns along the way - a real nightmare with people and traffic surrounding you because of locals doing their last minute shopping, especially for fish - a tradition that they cook about 7 fish courses. I agree with you that it is recommendable you buy excess insurance, especially on holiday in Italy. It is a bit expensive, about 30 euros a day, but you have total piece of mind that not one cent would be withdrawn from your credit card in case of any accident. However, no one should lose heart in driving in southern Italy, when you start gaining the experience, you then start driving like an Italian, but with some reverence to driving rules. You get accustomed to it after a couple of holidays.

Yes, it would be nice to travel in Tuscany in December, less touristy for sure than in Winter - San Gimignano was literally a ghost town in the evenings (but still had some restaurants open - plus their pastry cafeterias with their delicious cakes and pastries., but Florence always has tourists any time of year, but not like in Summer of course. We travelled 3 times in December in Italy, literally north, central, and south, and the Christmas celebrations are so unique - the Presepe Vivente where so many towns and villages in Umbria/Tuscany/Southern Italy trasform their homes into a huge live crib - the medieval hilltop towns with their narrow streets make a most lovely ambience.and you find many lovely Christmas markets in many localities for those who are fond of them - they make a street party every day out of it - we visited the one of Trento last December. There are so many unique festivities and traditions all over Italy during Christmastime.

You might also consider visiting the Sorrento coast for New Year's Eve for a holiday. The fireworks at midnight are spectacular, like I have never seen before, the whole Bay of Naples lights up like it is under siege, and all the towns and villages on the Sorrento/Amalfi coast coast make their own fireworks display, lasting for hours. You would be in the centre of all the madness in Naples (which I would not really recommend), but would have a much better view from Sorrento harbour area facing the Gulf of Naples. Plus so many streets are lit up everywhere (Positano is like a huge lit up Christmas tree), and cribs to visit or view along the road.

I fully understand how you can easily get addicted to Italy - what I love most about it, is that from north to south all its regions are different and unique, both geographically and culturally.

Must also agree with you that driving up the narrow hilltop towns can be scary and nerve wrecking - at least for me, my husband says he got used to them. But I am always so nervous and on edge when we are going up the narrow winding roads, especially the ones that have no barriers, like that of Volterra. But the worst one was of the Monte Amiata on Christmas eve. At a town up the mountain, in Abbadia San Salvatore, there is a unique festive celebration on Christmas Eve where the locals pile up huge stacks of wood in many squares and streets of the town (this takes them more than a whole month of preparation prior to Christmas), and they are blessed and lit up in the evening after dusk. The locals set up stalls where they offer warm wine flavoured with orange, and really delicious goodies prepared by the locals, for free - you just give a donation, they also roast chestnuts in the streets etc. There would also be carol singing and a lovely atmosphere all night long. Well, I had this bright idea of staying in a hamlet about 10 km from Abbadia San Salvatore, as it had raving reviews on its hospitality and meals - and I really wanted that we have our Christmas lunch there.

So, after joining in the celebrations and stuffing ourselves with the wine to warm us up and the food, we heard the midnight mass at the medieval abbey, and headed for the country relais around 3am in the night. Our Gaz (for which I have a great loathing from that day - but which my husband loves heart and soul - it really now became a competition between us) decided to take us all around the mountain (apparently there was a much shorter easier road as the relais hosts later told us), and we ended going down and again up this small mountain with its narrow winding road that had no barriers or light, road was wet and icy and so dark and misty hubby could hardly see. Believe me I was going to pee in my pants. But thank God, hubby remained calm and drove very slowly and carefully around the bends and for what seemed to me to be an eternity managed to drive us to the hamlet. I was stupid enough not to book accomodation in the town of Abbadis San Salvatore itself. During the day the drive up the mountain was not that bad, given that it was not snowing or raining, though not recommended for the really faint hearted or inexperienced drivers.

After that experience, even driving around the Amalfi Coast or up the Montepertuso mountain near Positano seemed so easy and relaxing, lol. I still tremble to this day when I remember that episode.

I do sympathise with you regarding the hot weather, but in the end you just get used to it, and live with it, I certainly had to get used to the heat waves which are common in all the Summer months around the Mediterranean. Thank God for that person who invented air conditioners - hopefully somebody will invent some sort of very cheap energy so that no expensive electricity would have to be consumed by the precious air conditioners to function (apart from the also very expensive solar panels which in the end I guess are a viable investment). But I guess you can't have your cake and eat it - as the English say, - you can't have the nice weather and sunshine without the heat in this part of the world. We just have to come to the UK or northern countries to cool off a bit.

Really really looking forward to any trip reports that you might post in the future at Fodors(this was the first one that I had read), they prove to be interesting reading wherever you go for sure!! I really appreciate that you spent time writing them, even during your holiday!!!

Thanks so much Anna - sounds like you have had your share of adventures too!!! We will consider Sorrento as well!

If you click on mine or Bikerscotts name you will find our trip reports for:

Paris for New Years 2009/2010
Portugal for New Years 201/2011
Strasbourg for Xmas 2008
Cinque Terre/Piedmonte 2010
Rome for New Years 2011/2012

Enjoy

And finally my photos - not nearly as many as Jamikins...

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151085436705115.479200.544425114&type=1&l=115b00cf3b

Great photos, BikerScott! Thanks!

Can't wait until our next trip!!!

Thanks for a. Great trip, you two. What a team!

Great trip report and photos. Really enjoyed following your adventures!

Loved the photos Bikerscott

Jamikins, thanks for the info of your other trip reports, I will most certainly read them, especially the one of Cinque Terre/Piemonte, since that area of Italu is on my list.

Like us,you also seem to enjoy the Christmas/New Year's activities abroad, it is a nice time to go on holidy for sure.

Did you read about the big infestation of large red cockroaches Naples currently has to deal with? - it was on the news. The authorities are spraying poison everywhere to try and get rid of it. The heatwave had much to do with its spreading, and also probably the garbage problems they are still facing. When we drove past Naples in December 2010 we saw so many stacks of garbage around the harbour area - a real shame and really disgusting - hope they have by now dealt with the problem.

Your mention of your travels to Tuscany in the winter reminds me of an article in the NYT. Looks like it's a beautiful place in the winter.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/travel/07tuscany.html?pagewanted=all

We just returned from a week in Val d'Orcia which is absolutely beautiful. One word of caution - I think it may be difficult to drive there in the winter. Roads are windy, narrow and without railguards (straight plunge into the valleys below)! There are signs cautioning against ice almost on every bend! I would suggest to get an automatic (which we did for this trip) - could make the driving a lot less stressful in the winter months.

Thanks for sharing your trip report! I can't wait to go back to Italia myself.

I did read about the roach problem - I hope they solve that before Easter!!!! Not too concerned about garbage (to be honest we will be spending most of our time eating HAHA)

We love NYE travel - but thats a good point about the windy roads Piccolina...definitely something to consider!! Thanks for the link!

Thanks for the photos! I got a good chuckle at the statue in Bologna!

Again thanks for an entertaining and informative read. I always look forward to your trips and am grateful that you share them with us.

Don't worry, I am sure that the cockroaches will all long gone from Naples by Eastertime, Jamikins!!!!

Who would not be eating away when in Naples or the Campagna region???!!! -Their pizzas are so delicious, you must go to Vico Equense and try the Pizza al Metro restaurant where they make the metre long pizza, really, really good, and they also make fried seafood as a side.

As piccolina mentioned, some placaes, might be quite challenging to drive (do not consider going up the Monte Amiata in the night-time though, I would wholeheartedly not recommend it), but I guess we were always lucky as on the two timees we were in Tuscany and the one time in Umbria always in December, we always found really lovely sunny - on two occasions it was snowing heavily just a month before in mountaineous or hilly areas we visited. But it should be ok if you do not find accomodation on a high hill top town to be on the safe side, and some research beforehand on accessibility on places you would like to visit would surely help.

Last December we did a day trip from Trento to the ski resort of Madonna di Campiglio, (it is a route up the Dolomite mountains, but it was an easy drive and the roads had barriers, and also luckily a nice day. I always seem to bring the nice weather with me when we go to Italy lol.

Like Piccolina said, the narrow winding roads without barriers with the straight plunge to the valley do REALLY give me the creeps, but at least some do have barriers and seem less dangerous than others. My husband got well used to them now and drives around with ease (he is more agitated in city centres), it is me that just clings to the car seat with fear. And anyway, you can still enjoy the Tuscan countryside and even towns and cities without going up hilltops if it is raining.

Believe me, Tuscany and Umbria are really beautiful in December. January and February you would definitely be expecting snow and hail,especially in areas with high altitude, last year they experienced such huge unexpected snowfalls in so many lower altitude cities in Italy like Florence, Rome Siena etc.

We stayed at Locanda del Borgo in Pietralunga in Umbria on Christmas Eve (after a long drive from Trento) . Since you (just like me and all my family) seem to enjoy the Italian food more than the holiday, you would like this relais for sure, maybe you would be interested in checking it out. On Christmas Eve they brought us a never ending feast, plate after plate of soup, pasta and endless plates of fish and shellfish (there must have been at least 7 dishes), accompanied by a whole bottle of prosecco and 3 whole good bottles of wine, desserts etc. There were five of us (they did not even charge my youngest daughter, not even for accomodation) and since we booked last minute (only a couple of weeks before) this huge dinner for four cost us 200 Euro - only 50 euro per person (and only 120 Euro for accomodation in a two-bedroom apartment for all of us including breakfast - there was even fruit and candies in the apartment) - incredible. Usually, as I found out, the same Italian families keep going to this relais year after year, they enjoy it so much (you encounter many Italian travellers in rural Umbria/Tuscany in December, unlike during the Summer months). The relais also has lovely country views and the owners are the nicest people you can ever hope to encounter. You can visit so many towns and cities of Umbria and Tuscany (since it is near its border). And so many other things to see like the world's largest Christmas tree in Gubbio - it can be seen from many miles around and the lights are lovely - we passed close to it when travelling to Rimini after Umbria (we are restless travellers, at least myself more than rest of family and do like to go around a lot in one holiday), so many presepe vivente, the ceramics in Deruta, Perugia, the lovely Lake Trasimeno area, and the father Christmases descending the Tiber river in lit-up canoes at arriving at Citta' di Castello, another lovely ancient town (we ended up missing this but we have to go again to this area another time). We also tried the Antico Forziere restaurant because of really raving reviews, could be because it was Christmas Day lunch and restaurant was full, but I felt a bit disappointed with the food.

Enjoy your sailing trip. It will be a lovely different experience from the usual holiday for sure!!! And happy planning for your future holidays. I will look forward to your trip reports for sure.

Just finished reading the whole thing, I loved following along on your trip, I absolutely cannot wait for ours!! Thanks for sharing, I'm sure we'll keep up also with your other trip reports

Thanks ams!! We love having everyone along for the ride...stay tuned for sailing in Greece in Aug..although that one may not be live as we will be on a sail boat!

We are in Puglia now and have been rereading your TR for suggestions. gotta say, we completely agree with your rules of the road. Today we nearly got struck by a crazy motorcyclist on the coast road to Santa Maria Leuca.

re gelato in Polignano Mare, I think u walked in the weong direction. we actually had some of the best gelato this trip in Polignano right near the entrance to the old town.

again thanks for sharing all this great info,

Meant to add, Naples is a fun, chaotic city...don't miss it. We spent the first four days there and loved it.