After bedding down Songster in order to leave her for 18 days, we were ready to catch
the bus to Igoumenitsa then catch the overnight ferry at midnight to Bari,
Italy. It was a long day and night but
fortunately the ferry had very few passengers and we were able to stretch out
and get some sleep.
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| Ferry coming in at midnight |
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| Early morning over the Adriatic |
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| Our first views of Italy |
We picked up our hire car in Bari and we
were ready to start our road trip of the Puglia and Calabria provinces of
Italy. We first headed towards Alberobello. Aberobello is known for its unique trullo
buildings. Trulli houses have comical
conical roofs of dry limestone. They
look like houses made for the woodland fairy folk. The popular story of their origin is that
they started building them in the 17th Century to avoid property
taxes. The dry stone wall construction
could be easily dismantled whenever the tax inspector was in the area. Now Trulli are tourist attractions and have
been renovated as boutique accommodation.
The countryside in Puglia is very pretty
with limestone dry stone walls surrounding the neat and tidy olive groves and
lush green fields of winter crops. We
spent the night in Ostuni and struggled to find anywhere for dinner. The Italians don’t start thinking about
having dinner until about 9 pm. We
hadn’t had any lunch as being the off season, the few cafes that were open had
shut by about 2 pm and we had missed out.
This plus the fact that we only had a few hours sleep on the ferry the
night before meant we really just wanted an early dinner and early to bed. We finally managed to find a restaurant near
our B & B that would serve us at 7 pm.
I must say though, the food was worth the wait – delicious seafood in
this part of the world.
The next day we continued south to Brindisi
to check out potential marinas and anchorages for next season and then on to
the very pretty city of Lecce. Lecce is
known as the Florence of the south. This
is drawing a bit of a long bow but the city does have many lovely Renaissance
buildings as well as an ancient amphitheatre only recently excavated. The view from our B&B was very festive.
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| The view from our B&B in Lecce |
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| Old town Gate |
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| Recently excavated Roman amphitheatre |
The next day we continued south into the
heel. First stop was Ortanto, a very
pretty town with the 15th Century Aragonese Castle, overlooking the
harbour. We spent an hour or two walking
around the delightful old town. This
port is definitely high on our list to visit on Songster next season.
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| Harbour at Ortanto |
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| Castle wall |
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| Recycled plastic bottle Christmas tree |
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| Ship sculpture of rusty steel and glass |
We continued to Leuca at the very tip of
the heel. This town has a great harbour
but it is definitely a holiday town and the entire place was closed up for the
winter. We had hoped to grab some lunch
here but there was nothing open and we continued up the west coast of the heel
to Gallipoli.
Gallipoli is a sizable city with several
good ports and another great old castle around the old town. We found a restaurant still open on the
blustery windy headland of the old town and had a fantastic seafood linner. We had ordered a mixed seafood antipasta
thinking it would be a small plate to share.
Instead they brought out 6 separate plates of exquisite seafood: raw prawns in a light peanut sauce, raw tuna
with grated parmesan, eggplant with calamari and prawns, stuffed zucchini with
fish pesto and a fish cake.
Delizioso! The sun was setting as
we finished our linner and totally replete we headed back to our B&B in
Lecca.
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| Beachfront at Gallipoli |
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| Castle wall |
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| Fantastic seafood pasta |
The next day we had a long drive around the
instep of the foot into Calabria. The
neat and tidy plains of Puglia gave way to the rugged hills and slightly poorer
region of Calabria. We arrived in
Crotone after dark to the nicest B&B we have yet to stay in, the B&B
Castello, right next to the castle wall.
A lot of care and thought had gone into decorating and organisation of
this small B&B. The hosts were
delightful and returned an hour after we checked in with fresh baked apple cake
to welcome us.
The next morning we walked around the
waterfront doing our usual reconnoitre for possible visits with Songster. The waterfront was very industrial and looked
like there the area was doing some scrapping of old boats as there were half a
dozen half sunk wrecks in the harbor – a very sad sight.
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| Cyclamens and old architecture |
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| Boat graveyard |
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| Castle now a restaurant enroute to Crotone |
Our next stop was the city of Reggio
Calabria, right on the toe of Italy overlooking the island of Sicily. We again arrived on dark (the short winter
days make for truncated days of sightseeing).
We enjoyed the festive winter lights around the town with Christmas
shoppers busy buying gifts.
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| Christmas Square in Reggio Calabria |
It was time to start making our way back to
Bari. Along the way we stopped at the
village of Scalla. This picturesque
village is known for its unique boats used to fish for swordfish. In winter the waves pound onto the beach and
headland. The town rises above the water
on steep cliffs and narrow roads.
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| Rainbow over Sicily across the Messina Strait |
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| Castle at Scilla |
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| Windswept beach |
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| Large truck stuck on the narrow steep streets of Scilla |
We spent the night in the hill town of
Cosenza. It was cold and wet so we
didn’t see much of the town. We woke up
to views of snow in the mountains.
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| Snow covered mountains near Cosenza |
Finally we were back in Bari to return our
rental car. We really enjoyed seeing
this part of southern Italy, away from the usual tourist spots, but we did tend
to remark how much nicer everything would be in summer. Despite Bob having spent two years in
Antarctica, we just are not winter people.
Never mind, we will return to this coast on Songster next season when it is warm.
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| Italian Road Trip |
