Patrick

After spending two nights in Taormina (we had promised ourselves not to repeat anywhere we'd been on this trip, but we were so close, we couldn't pass up a return to Taormina), we took the ferry across to the mainland at Villa San Giovanni. The whole operation was quick, efficient, and painless. After being on islands for nearly a month (Corsica, Sardinia, Lipari, and Sicily) it was nice to be on "real land" once more. We stopped at Scilla for lunch. What a quaint and interesting little stop. Had a great lunch at Grotta Azzura, and then set off to the hill town of Altomonte. Our reason for the stop there was the little hotel we had found on the internet -- Hotel Barbieri. The town of Altomonte sits up as its name would suggest on quite a high hill. We drove around looking for our hotel, found some signs but kept getting lost. At last we found someone to point the way, and there it was, on another hill across a small valley facing the town itself. We pulled into the drive and were greeted with a "just leave your car there. Sit and have a glass of wine with us." So we did. Then another glass. Finally we insisted we should unload the car and see our room. The hotel is a family run place -- several generations, and is a work in progress. They have added a second tower of rooms (not maybe 40 in all) for the many regular visitors they get, often from Rome or other cities who come down for the weekend to "get away". The rooms are simple and plain, but most have a balcony which juts out and faces the spectacular view of the town, just out of arm's reach and the endless valley beyond. We reminded them we wanted dinner that night, and with shock the owner said, "well, of course" as if why else would we be there. He was right. At nine we went downstairs and sat at a table out on the huge terrace. There was probably 8 or 10 feet between each table -- incredibly spacious (perhaps to allow room for what we were about to eat). The owner said there were no menus or wine list. We discussed the kind of wine we like (big, robust, earthy!) and out came a wonderful bottle. He asked if we liked mushrooms as the porcini were fresh in. Lee, not a huge mushroom fan, nodded approval, and I (being a mushroom freak) nearly drooled on the tablecloth. The food was "typical Calabrian". We started with no less than 15 different appetizers -- nearly half of them contain porcini -- sauteed with herbs, tossed with wilted arugula, fried with cheese, stuffed with everything imaginable. There were also eggplant dishes, ceci beans, proscuitto, salami, croquettes in a variety of tastes, and four different spreads for the wonderful chewy bread. This should have been the meal! Next came pasta -- pappardelle with tomatoes, cheese, and porcini. Heaven. We thought that was the end of that course, but then out came gnocci in a meat broth, tomatoes, and cheese. We were stuffed. They offered choices of lamb or pork, but we passed. We were truly stuffed. But we sat a while and they brought out plates of tiny desserts, biscotti, and various pastries, along with dessert wine. We spent about three hours eating all this, and realized we never had a main course. We had no idea what the price of all this was, and no bill came, they said they'd add it to our room. We were pleasantly surprised in the morning when we checked out after our huge breakfast with an incredible assortment of fresh pastries (some filled with hot, melting chocolate) and wonderful fresh peaches, that the entire dinner and spectacular wine cost 79 euro. This was added to the cost of the room -- 78 euro. What a find this place was.

flygirl

I am stuffed just reading this. Go Patrick!!

Patrick

We set out driving after our night of pure indulgence and were caught up in incredible traffic. Today was Saturday, August 3 and we found that the entire country of Italy had seemingly closed down and was headed for the beaches for vacation. For the next two nights on TV we saw pictures of the miles of traffic backed up on the autostratas heading south out of the cities. Fortunately we weren't heading to the beaches, so we missed the worst of it. Instead we headed to Matera, the wonderful little Unesco village of caves and cave dwellings. We managed to find out hotel, Hotel Sassi, which was right in the midst of all these ancient cave dwellings. They had told me that we could "park in the lot next to the hotel". What they hadn't told us that the "lot" was at the bottom of 111 steps leading up to our hotel. The hotel was charming however. We gathered a few things and left most of our luggage in the trunk for the two nights we were there. No way we were dragging luggage up those stairs.<BR><BR>Matera is simply fascinating. We had a "private" tour of Madonna delle virtu, 3 levels and three eras of cave churches built on top of each other -- a Greek church, a 14th century church, and later a sort of commune home for 70 "extended family" members up until the 1950's when the Italian government made living in these caves illegal. <BR>Mainly in Matera we ate -- this seemed to be the central theme of our visit to all of southern Italy -- and we became increasingly more skilled at it.<BR>At Oi Mari, the waiter asked if we had ever had pizza before. We laughed and said "of course". "No" he said. "If you haven't had our pizza, then you've never experienced pizza." He may have been right. We broke our cardinal rule and ate at this same place twice. But we also had an incredible lunch at Il Terrazzino. We hoped to go back the next night for dinner, but found they were closed on Sunday, so we simply returned to Oi Mari and had more wonderful pizza.<BR><BR>From Matera, we drove off to the south, heading into the "heel" of Italy, arriving in Lecce about noon. Our hotel, The Patria Palace, was simply beautiful, but we were practically the only ones there. Again, primarily a business hotel, there simply is no "business" in August. We walked around town looking for the restaurants from my "recommendations" list, but most were closed for vacation. We had dinner that night at our hotel. It was nothing less than spectacular, although there were only 6 other diners in the room. Again we broke our rule again, and this time actually ate dinner there all three nights we were in Lecce.<BR>

Patrick

We spent our days driving. We drove to the town of Gallipoli, drove across the medieval bridge and onto the most interesting little peninsula, jammed with residences -- sort of a cross between a slum and a fisherman's village. The walkway around the outside of this area had several restaurants and it didn't take us long to find Le Bastion, built into the fortified walls. We sat outside, the sea breezes blowing in our faces and once again were confronted by the "no wine list, no menu" routine. The chef would cook us lunch for the day. The waiter took me to the front and we looked at wines together and I chose one --"Pavorotti's favorite", he said. It seemed the Pavorotti was a fairly frequent guest and to hear our waiter tell it, everything we had that day was Pavorotti's favorite. Ah, another two hour lunch -- just what we needed. Plates of octopus and calamari salads, various croquettes, grilled shrimp, then pappardelle with fresh tomatoes, arulula, and tons of seafood. Dessert was a semifreddo with melted carmel and nuts on top, covered with a sweet wine. <BR><BR>Somehow we managed to roll back to our car and drove south along the coast to the very tip of southern Italy -- very slow going as along the coast there were thousands of beachgoers, parked anywhere you could stick a car off the road. We returned to Lecce by early evening. We swore we weren't going to eat dinner, but 9:00 found us back in the hotel dining room.<BR>

Patrick

The next day we drove to Otranto, just in time for a market. Saw the basilica with the most amazing mosaic floor of a gigantic tree of life pattern reaching from one end to the other. Also visited Caesarea Terme with its old baths and colorful palazzos -- on to Castro, then back to Lecce. <BR><BR>Lecce itself is a little gem of a city. The architecture is nothing short of amazing with some of the most intricately carved and ornate facades I've ever seen. The square of the Cathedral and Bishops' Palace is sometimes considered one of Europe's most beautiful squares. We were impressed by day, but when we went back at night and saw it all lit, we were simply in awe. It is magnificent. <BR><BR>On Thursday we left heading north. We stopped at Brindisi, a city I always heard should be avoided. We immediately thought it had gotten a bad rap. Obviously a lot has been done recently and more is being done now, but it was not a bad little city at all. They are restoring some spectacular step and a column that mark the end of one of the trails of the old Appian Way where it reaches the sea. The main streets in town have all been newly paved and landscaped and are lined with fountains and flowers. It was really quite a pretty little city. Had a nice lunch, then moved on to our next spot -- Polignano di Mare.

ooo

WOW.....I'm jealous. &lt;S&gt;

Patrick

Polignano di Mari is not a big city. It has only a coupld of hotels, and without a doubt we picked the best one -- the Grotto Palazzese Hotel. This is a small hotel right on the Adriatic. Its main feature is its incredible restaurant -- an actual grotto cave naturally carved out of the rock. There is a flat floor suspended (again naturally) above the sea which flows back under the restaurant and echos into the huge expanse of cave behind it. In other words the restaurant is surrounded on two sides and below by the sea. All the walls are natural rock. At night it is all lit with candles and tuxedoed waiters deliver wonderful food -- primarily exquisite seafood. It is magical. But our room was the best one in the house. Not in the main building itself, but around the corner, on a tiny non-drivable street. You open two green barn doors, and enter -- into a vaulted cave room, with an entrance, then three steps down into a large living/bedroom -- totally vaulted in stone. There are French doors leading out onto a stone balcony suspended over the sea and looking down into the grotto restaurant. Spectacular. We were staying three nights and were glad. Yes, once again we broke tradition and ate at our hotel all three nights. We looked at other places, but we would have been crazy not to eat there each night. Each dinner with wine was just under 100 euro. (Let it be noted that we tend to order good wines). It was worth every penny -- acutally worth a lot more, but this is off the beaten path where 100 euro is considered very expensive for a meal!

Patrick

Our days there were spend driving the area. We visited the famous limestone caves -- Castellano Grotte, Italy's deepest and most impressive caves. We spent a few hours in Alberbello, home of the trulli dwellings, an Unesco Heritage area. The buildings were interesting, but the town was like one huge souvenier shop. We enjoyed spotting the other trulli for miles around in the countryside. Also drove to Castel del Monte, a wonderfully picturesque Norman octagon castle built in 1240. Saw the "colossus" in Barletta, a huge bronze statue that was looted from Constinoble, was shipwrecked and eventually washed up here. And we saw the pretty little cathedral on the sea at Trani. <BR><BR>The highlight of our stay in Polignano (and there seemed to be a lot of highlights to our stay there) was that our final night there was the first night of their festival. The entire town was decked out in huge lighted "laceworks" surrounding the square, lining the main street, etc. There were bands playing in the square, a fair going on, and marching bands through the town during the day. Incidentally, it seemed the entire time we were in Polignano, we never saw or met any other Americans or even Brits. It was about the second day we suddenly realized that although there were other tourists, they all seemed to be Italian. <BR><BR>On Sunday, we headed off to Bari (only about a half hour away) and killed the day waiting for our evening ferry to Dubrovnik. Bari seemed to be another town that gets a bad rap. We wandered the old city, each time getting lost -- no street seems to go straight for more than about 10 feet. And of course, we saw "Santa Claus's" bones in the basilica of Saint Nicholas. Early Sunday evening in Bari was fun. Residents came out with their lawn chairs and set up along the sea promenade in big family groups. For a while we thought they were getting ready for a parade, but we realized they just do this. Everybody passes by each other and talks. The best part was to see that entire families -- often four generations were spending the time together.<BR><BR>This entire region was a most interesting and fun place to visit -- and our stay was all too short.

Elsa

As usual. Patrick, GREAT report. I am always amzed at how much preparation you must have to do for your lengthy trips. Most of the places you go to probably aren't even in any of the Fodors posts - therefore, No Fodorite feedback regarding them. Looking forward to your post on Dubrovnick. Our daughter just got back and she LOVED it.

tia

ttt

flygirl

Patrick, what was your favorite food in the Bari area? My boyfriend's Dad is from that area, I can't remember the name of the little village - but he raves about the food.

Patrick

Topping.<BR><BR>Regarding the food, we couldn't get beyond lots of perfectly grilled fish and pastas.

Bobby Trendy

elsa and patrick are the same person.

Patrick

Too funny, Bobby Trendy. And aren't you and Anna Nicole the same person?

kk

Patrick, please adopt me. I will have the papers repared and delivered for your signature as soon as possible -- in other words, before your next trip!<BR><BR>DROOL

Patrick

To the top for ??'s request.

eliztrav

Thanks for this fabulous trip report. We want to follow in your footsteps immediately!

SuzieC

What a wonderful report. Its 11:23 in the morning and now I am starving for lunch...I seem to have a yen for Italian!
Anyway, this is just the sort of thing I wanted to read about the Adriatic coast. At the risk of sounding weird (even more weird&gt, I think it &quot;calls to my heart&quot;...
Polignano di Mari sounds like a wonderful spot for me!
Thank you Patrick for bringing this back up.

beanweb24

Patrick -- Excellent trip report...my husband and I are aiming to do a S Italy tour next year and this will help with planning.

One question -- in terms of airports, where was your arrival and departure? Thanks.

RuthMc

I too thank you for topping this. It convinced me that I don't want to stay at the Hotel Sassi on our upcoming trip to Puglia--111 steps! Yikes! I'm not currently in good enough physical condition to deal with that (which I will blame on recent foot and back problems). How about the Grotto Palazzee--would it pose similar for physically challenged (or simply unwilling) folks like me?