May 6 Friday – Today we’re leaving Calabria for the region of Puglia - “the heel of the Italian boot”. Our route takes us north through some hilly country for about an hour, then we head east which takes us along the “instep of the boot”. As we travel along the turquoise blue Ionian Sea we pass some tourist spots and towns, yet we can clearly see this area is based on the agricultural industry, and the landscape had flattened out, no sign of mountains now, just the odd small hill. We are amazed yet again at the enormous amount of fruit trees, vegetables and olive groves. Again we saw kms and kms of covered crops and trees – sometimes as far as the eye could take in! Our trip over to our next accommodation is completed in about 4 hours under beautiful blue sky, with a stop on a beach for a picnic lunch.
We arrive in Francavilla Fontana with ease. However, once we get into the town, we do manage to get a bit turned around trying to get out to the specific road. So, we pull over, backtrack and come across the route Yeah! We are told that the accommodation is “exactly” 4 km from town. We travel 4 km and we don’t come across it – UGH! We pulled in to a place and I ask a woman where Masseria Palmo is – who tells me in Italian it is another couple of km down the road. Finally we arrive to the “grand entrance” we were told to watch out for, and conclude the end of town must not be where we thought it was ! Masseria Palmo is designated agriturismo, which is an actual working farm also offering accommodation for tourists.
We are absolutely delighted by the place. It is an active olive plantation producing olive oil – both organic as well as extra virgin olive oil - which sits on 250 acres. As well as olives while M and I walk around we come across fig trees, apricots, peaches, lemon, orange and almond trees. The rooms are actually located in a building, at one time was part of the storage and working areas for the oil making facility as well as canning of other produce grown here. We have a 2 bedroom suite beautifully appointed and in the typical architecture. The buildings have stone interior as well as white plaster and the ceilings are curved and arched.
This is a bed and breakfast, so we need to go in search of a restaurant for dinner. We trace our steps back to the town of Francavilla Fontana and park in an area busy with people. We go in search of a restaurant, other than a pizzeria or a coffee/gelato shop. The coffee shops are very popular in this city, however, we have great difficulty locating an actual restaurant. This surprises us as we have not encountered this anywhere else we have been. J is complaining about all the walking we’ve been doing with no luck and he’s getting hungry. So, after walking around for about 30 minutes, we decide to go back to the car and drive around some, thinking, maybe we’re in the wrong part of the city for restaurants….. Anyways we come across another area busy with people and park and finally find a restaurant, although it was primarily a pizzeria. Now at this restaurant we order fried mozzarella. We think – “ah, we know what that is. We enjoyed it in Taormina, let’s order 2 orders this time.” Well…. When the orders arrive we stare in amazement because what we thought would be deep fried crusted mozza pieces are actually two ½ inch slabs of mozzarella quickly fried so they are slightly melted plunked on each plate!! We didn’t think we’d be having a half pound of cheese for a starter!! Oh well, we did manage to eat most of it, before getting tired of it!
Saturday, May 7 – It’s a beautiful day with sunny blue skies! We went over to the main house for a delightful breakfast which was laid out for us by Jenny, the owner. We have all the delights of a continental breakfast along with some products prepared here – such as jams and baking. We are seated in beautiful surroundings and enjoy a big breakfast. Now we’re ready to explore!
Today we are off to travel to the tip of the “heel of the boot”. We’ve already done the toe, drove across the instep, now it’s the heel. It will take about 2 hours to get to Leuca, Castrignano Del Capo. Our first order of business before our adventure is to go to a train station so we can book our first class tickets on the train for our upcoming trip to Northern Germany on May 23. We have learned that in order to be sure of a seat in 1st class, it is advantageous to pay the extra 10 Euro each to reserve seats. We found this out when we wanted to get on the train from Paris to Milan and there weren’t any seats available on the preferred departure time train. We ended up having to book a longer train route. We had first tried the station in Pizzo but it was very small and had no one there, now we try the Francavilla station, but it is also not a big enough centre to have a full time ticket person, so we had to engage plan B. Drive to Brindisi – a large centre about 40 km away, which we have to go past anyway. Plugged in Navi – and away we went in search of the station. We’ve learned the Navi sometimes takes us on some weird routes but he did get us to our destination within this larger city. Here the train station is larger and busy and we are in luck with a ticket agent. Armed with information already plugged into our translator program I was able to get the tickets we wanted. A good thing M had spent the time the night before researching and typing everything in, because the ticket lady hardly spoke any English! It made the ticket processing much much easier. Now M could relax about us having our most critical tickets secured, the leg from Napoli to Geneve.
To the tip of the boot we are headed now! We drive through flat landscape with millions of olive trees – and a couple days later M spent time calculating as only an engineer would do, to estimate how many we drove past today (about 5 million or so). As we head south toward the tip, the architecture changes as well, definitely influenced and similar to Greece. We arrive in Leuca and it is beautiful – the sea is calm. We drive to and park on the promenade along the beach. Here there isn’t much for sandy beach, there are a few of smaller areas where sand exists, otherwise it is serious rock. We take off our shoes and socks, sit along a concrete dock and put our heels in the water at :the tip of the heel” and do the photo shoot! The water was brisk, but the longer in the water, the more acclimatized our feet became. We decide to walk around and enjoy the warmth of the sun. I wandered along the long promenade and noticed installed metal staging along the rocks in front of hotels. They will put decking on these for the summer months for sunbathing. No long sandy beaches here! It is a beautiful spot though. It’s understandable why people would spend time here for vacation!
After refreshments at a bar – which is an actual outdoor café, we decide on a different route to return back. We travel north through more olive groves and as we near Francavilla area, about 60 km south we come across some serious grape growing area. Here the soil is a different, darker colour than the red earth that is under the olive trees where we are staying.
We decide to head to Ostuni for dinner tonight – it is about 16 km northeast of where we are staying. This is a more popular spot with tourists due to its architecture and historic city centre. I have searched Tripadvisor for restaurants and reviews and have chosen Ristorante Odissea for dinner located near the historic centre. With the help of Navi we locate the restaurant. We arrive at the door to find that it doesn’t open until 7pm – it’s 6:40. We wander around the town a little and conclude we must come back another day so we can explore. From the vantage point on a walkway along the edge of the old city, we can see the valley below and the green of the groves below us. Definitely the green is more prominent than buildings!
We arrive at the restaurant at 7:15 and walk in just behind our waiter – as he appears moments later dressed in garb which he didn’t have on as we came in…. The place is empty of course - only the English come out to eat early. The restaurant is an old olive oil plant which has been totally renovated to be a restaurant yet maintaining and restoring some of the area where they pressed the olives… The place is enchanting with the heavy wooden tables and wood and wrought iron chairs. Again the ceiling is arched in many places with stone and plastered walls and ceilings – very cool!
Tonight we enjoy a first class dinner with everything being top-notch. We talked to the waiter, with T doing a great job in Italian thus learned, and find out that most people don’t arrive for dinner in this area until around 9 – 10 at night, sometimes even as late as 11. We asked what do the people do with kids and he said often the kids fall asleep at the table! He said he appreciated us English coming in early. We spent 1 ¾ hours here and we were the only ones in the place. While we were waiting for our incredible desserts to be prepared, our waiter took us down to the cellar which was below where we sat for dinner and showed us where they used to press the olives and store things. It was very old – large stone block patched floors – cool!! A wonderful night spent together!
Sunday May 8 – Today is Mother’s Day and Jeffrey’s 10th birthday. He’s been counting down the days until he could open his presents. He wanted heelys (a sneaker that was wheels in the heel so you can glide along), and an Italian national team soccer jersey. We also surprised him with a pair of Italian national team shorts as well as a Air Italia plane to add to his collection and a couple of DVD’s for our TV less nights. He was super excited to get his gifts. As well, we thought of checking whether we could get to see a pro soccer game while we were in Italy. With 3 weeks left in the regular season we were fortunate to find a game in Lecce, a city only about 1 ¼ hour from here. M researched where we could buy game day tickets and we were successful with the help of Navi to locate the shop. We had to wait in line for a while, but we were successful in getting 3 tickets to today’s match Lecce vs Napoli. With several hours before game time we decided to go to the beach outside of Lecce on the Adriatic Coast to spend some time in the sun.
We had a nice time at the beach for a couple of hours and then drove back in to find a spot to park. Lots of the locals parked along the highway exits close to the stadium having us wonder if there was any parking left at the stadium – perhaps they didn’t want to pay for parking like at home. We arrived at the stadium grounds to find that there were indeed lots of spaces – hmm, maybe it was for after the game so they could get away quicker….
We wore our Canada shirts and J his new Italian soccer suit and Canada hat to the game. A number of people commented on “Canada”. Once in the stadium, we found our seats to be in a great spot on the home team side in the shaded area. 35 Euro for an adult and 5 Euro for a child. We had a great view of the entire field. The stadium was alive with chants as soon as we arrived. The Napoli fans were situated in one section of the stadium – separated from the rest of the home fans by high fences. As an extra precaution there were security guards lined up near the home Lecce fans to ensure nothing was thrown or occurred between the two groups. The noise in the stadium was very loud – such that we almost had to shout to hear each other talk. We had a great time watching the passionate fans cheer and jeer! The bonus of the afternoon was that Lecce (a team much further down in the standings than Napoli) actually won the game 2 – 1 and the crowd was jubilant! A great way to spend a sunny afternoon!! J was pleased we were able to get tickets.
We drove back to Ostuni (past another 2 million olive trees – by M’s calcs)
and found a place in an outdoor café to have dinner and then we returned to Ristorante Odissea for dessert. T had a plate of local cheeses with a glass of red wine and the boys each enjoyed a dessert. A great way to cap off Mother’s Day and J’s 10th birthday!
Monday, May 9th While having breakfast, Jenny the owner came in and asked us if we wanted to have a tour of the main house and facilities. Of course we readily agreed. First she took us to show the remainder of the restaurant rooms as well as the huge industrial sized kitchen. J was impressed “Boy dad, this kitchen is just like in Food Networks “Top Chef”!” It was impressive and gleaming. Next she lead us down to a tasting room where it was rock walls with wine barrels. She also showed us old pottery casks/jugs which were used to store wine prior to oak barrels. Now this room is a wine cellar with the testing tables and all – a wonderful atmosphere!
She explained that the restaurant used to be where the animals were kept – high ceilinged area was where the tall animals were kept and the lower ceiling sections were where the chickens, sheep etc were kept. Now it’s been totally renovated to look palatial and grand. A great deal of sweat equity went into this loving restoration.
Next, Luigi, her husband and whose family restored the buildings and run the plantation, took us to the area where they process the olives to make oil. The press is enormous with large very heavy rock wheels, which turn in a vat and crush the olives. He told us that they have 20 000 olives trees and made 1 Million L of olive oil last year (a year with uncharacteristicly low sunshine) and this year they hope to make 2 Mil. Some is organic and some is processed into Extra Virgin. The place gleams with huge stainless steel storage containers. As well, there were stacks of 10 L metal tins ready to be shipped throughout Europe. They do not yet ship to N. Am. They also make a lemon olive oil (a mixture of 50% olive 50% lemon) we sampled and plan to buy a bottle to take along with us. His mother preserves a number of other products which they sell – figs, vinegars, jams, and condiments to accompany meats which are recipes passed down from generation to generation. We had a great time sampling the various products and Luigi was so pleased to share his love of the place and products with us. They are definitely proud of their business and they should be!!
Today was our day to get caught up on blog writing and other paperwork which we needed Wi-Fi for – as we don’t always have access to it. It’s amazing how we miss not having the net – especially when we want to do research for another part of the trip…
Later in the afternoon, we decided to go explore Ostuni – “La citta biancha” the white city. Along the way we see a trulli, which are circular stone huts with cone shape roofs where peasant families used to dwell, a number of them have been restored for homes and tourists. As with all the Italian cities, there is an old centro (centre), which overlooks the valley and sea below in the distance where we wander along narrow passageways and staircases within 90% old white buildings, the other color is beige/stone.
We meander through and come across various shops and restaurants off the main pathways. We decide to stop off at a little shop we had passed the day before, where an older Italian gentleman who we think is in his mid-late 70’s carves spoons and cooking utensils from olive wood. He didn’t speak English, but with my Italian and he speaking fairly slowly, he lovingly explained and demonstrated each implement. He had a small orange box filled with his completed wares. He so enjoyed chatting away – eventually I began getting only about 60% of what he was saying, but here’s the jest…. He does everything by hand using no machines. He has lots of tourists come but sometimes they don’t want to pay the price for what he does. His place is not like the other tourist shops. We purchase 3 beautifully handcrafted spoons to stir the sugo once we return to Canada and bid him Ciao and go on own way.
On the advice of Luigi, we go to another town nearby for what he said in Italian – the best local cuisine around. We locate this restaurant, not accessible by road, we meander up staircases to find this former convent turned restaurant. It is just after 8 pm and we are still the first to arrive! Shortly, a group of Italians come in as well. We are treated to an even better tasting meal than at Odissea from the other night. We choose pureed fava beans with local vegetables, rabbit stew, pork shank and homemade osceilli (flat disc) pasta with pomodoro (tomato) and hard ricotta – we didn’t even know you could get any form but soft…
To cap it off, M and I have a cheese platter served with honey and a sweet wine and are instructed to eat the cheeses in sequence. What an array of flavor, the honey and sweet wine enhanced the cheese. What a wonderful way to end the evening. J of course had ciocolatto gelato.
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