Tuesday, May 10 – It’s time to leave Francovilla Fontana and drive to Vieste, Puglia which is basically on the “spur of the Italian Heel” as described in one of the tourist books. We left around noon after having breakfast, our workout, packing up and paying the bill . Before leaving I went looking for Luigi to purchase some of the products that they make. Purchased an eggplant tapenade, olive tapenade, a fruit vinegar (like hi octane balsamic vinegar), lemon olive oil, and fruit chutney good with meat or cheese. Luigi gave me a discount on what was chosen and then added for free a couple of small cans of organic olive oil, a couple of jars of different olives as well as some marinated figs. We will certainly enjoy these things when we head to the Amalfi Coast at the end of the week.
Leaving the area we head toward Bari, on the coast, with a large central train station. We want to see if we can arrange our train trip from Geneve to Hamburg, and our sleeper car for the overnight trip back from Hamburg. Along the way we want to see if we can locate these cool caves we saw in a brochure. We travel north and locate the exit and drive up into rolling hills planted with fruit, crops and olives. It is very picturesque. We see many trulli homes – lots are restored, but some are not – which gives a sense of what they must have looked like in years gone by. We arrive at the caves only to find that we must take a guided 1 hour tour which would leave in 45 min. Well, it was already 2:45 so we had a “Shaw family” discussion and decided to forgo the tour as we weren’t sure how long we’d be in Bari and how long it would be to reach our destination.
We drove into Bari and for a large city – it was quite tame in the traffic department!! We located the station with Navi’s help of course, and after standing in line for about 20 min. found out we couldn’t make the bookings we wanted to while in Italy… Oh well, we get on our way out of the city to head north and then east to Vieste, Puglia.
Vieste is a town of 13,500 people surrounded by Gargano National Park. As we get near the park we drove along the coast for about 40 km on twisting, winding roads with many sharp turns resulting in a thought “Where have I booked and what have I gotten us into for the next few days!!!” When we finally reach the area on the eastern coast, it is beautiful with many beaches. It certainly wasn’t appearing that way when we were driving along the cliffs! I can see why it is an Italian summer destination spot. We locate our residence, perched on the hill overlooking the town and harbor. It is a beautiful day and the color of the sea is two toned – green near the shore and dark blue out on the horizon. The place is only 2 years old and has WI-FI !!!! at a much quicker speed than we have been finding, as well as pool and games room. We are all very pleased with the place.
According to Gaetano – the caretaker of our facility, today is the last day of a four-day religious celebration of Santa Maria and there are festivities in the town center and fireworks at midnight. We decide to go out for dinner as we have arrived at 6:30 and we don’t feel like going to buy groceries to cook. The town is hopping at 7:30 when arrive and locate a parking spot. We amble up one of the streets and decide to stop at a couple of markets to pick up a few things for breakfast. After dropping things off in the car, we follow the various signs posted for centro and go in search of a restaurant. Along some of the main thoroughfares there are lit decorations that appeared to be along the lines of what we would see for streetlight Christmas decorations. We had seen these in a couple of towns prior to here, I had thought they must be in conjunction with May the month of Mary.
We walked around and listened to a local band performing dressed in their customary outfits entertaining the crowd. We found a restaurant serving seafood dishes and locally caught fish. A little pricey for the secondi piatti of a grilled fish which Mark had. They charged him $20 Euro ($28 Can) for a whole grilled fish with nothing else on the plate except a couple of slices of lemon…. Good thing it was tasty!
We did have to do a bit of backtracking once we finished our dinner to locate our car. We got a bit turned around with all the side streets etc. So, we followed the “leader’s” advice of “let’s retrace our steps and go back to the restaurant and start all over again. “ Lo and behold we were able to locate the familiar streets and head for home – what a good leader we have!!!
Once back at the apartment J wanted to stay up for the fireworks, so we waited around for midnight to arrive. T was tired, and told the boys to wake her when the fireworks started. 12:15 arrives and there still are no fireworks. We decide to give them to 12:30 and sure enough at 12”25 they start. For a little town, the display was wonderful – lasting about 25 minutes. Our accommodation overlooks the city and harbor – so we had a wonderful vantage to view the magical colors! What a nice unexpected treat!!!
Wednesday, May 11 – After working out and breakfast, we needed to go down into town to find some groceries for the next couple of days. We find a small supermarket where we pick up almost everything we need – including wine of course, and beer for sitting in the hot sun. We are in a shop which has 1 person working – she’s cashier, deli attendant and grocery bagger all in one. As consequence, when we are ready to purchase all our items, we must wait for almost 10 minutes while she finishes serving people at the deli counter before coming up front to put through our order. We still do not have everything, so we split up. M goes for fresh produce and J and T go pickup a couple of other items.
Our complex has a wonderful pool area where we spend the afternoon enjoying the warmth of the sun, the view of the town and splendor of the area. J has a great time swimming even though the water is a bit chilly. We also get caught up on our laundry situation as the laundry bag was getting quite full.
Thursday, May 12 – Usual morning routine completed, we go down into Vieste to look around. We can see a fortress structure atop the hill in the town we want to check out as well as wander around the streets. A good deal of this town is relatively young – with many apartment complexes that appear new. This likely has something to do with the promotion of tourism in this area of many fine beaches.
We come across marble tiled streets and staircases. It’s siesta time while we are walking around – so you can hear people in the neighborhoods having lunch and hanging. We enjoyed walking along the sea wall – saw the remains of a hull of a ship, which had beached itself. We walked up to the fortress which we were not able to walk around in as the Italian military are still using it as posted by signage and the radar turning on the roof of the structure.
We happened along a walkway which took us down near the water where there were a couple of sea caves – there are quite a few in this area as stated in the tourist brochure. We could see how a portion of the town was built on a cliff adding a vantage point for overlooking the harbor to protect the coast. We took some photos and J made a video and then we were off to the apartment for the rest of the afternoon spent around the pool. Today it is warmer than yesterday and the pool is already beginning to warm up. Another wonderful afternoon spent here and its our last before we are off the Amalfi Coast. 
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