Yes, there is an east coast to Italy. Not many tourists realize that, nor do many of the guide books. That means, of course, it is an ideal place to venture for CrossCountry Bob and Paintin’ Peggie. You need a car, a good, little Italian car. Like this…
This little beauty is easier driving on those narrow streets in the old part of town. With a standard transmission it was sometimes a bit of a workout for CrossCountry Bob’s worn out left knee!
CrossCountry Bob and Paintin’ Peggie took the high speed train from Rome to Barletta on the east coast and collected that reserved, black Fiat from Europcar (no fee paid by Europcar for this mention lol!). First stop in the Fiat wasTrani. Check it out.
The street vendors inTrani are selling lots of produce and the eating grapes are delizioso!
So, the first two weeks of Italy were filled with history and art and sculpture and churches and museums and Roman ruins and crusader castles and…..well, you catch the drift; the plan for the east coast of Italy is ocean, cliffs, beachside cafes, small towns and less tourists. Otherwise known as Paintin’ Peggie style (with the full concurrence of CrossCountry Bob).
With that travel style in mind, the first outing was a two hour drive along the coast to Vieste. The best thing CrossCountry Bob can do here is let the pictures do the talking…
After Vieste, it was time for the opposite. Inland to the ancient towns of Gravina and Matera. The original inhabitants (Bronze Age or earlier) lived in caves burrowed into the limestone cliffs. This style of living definitely had its adherents through the ages -.natural insulation and some protection from the marauders that plagued the area right up and through the medieval days.
Gravina is the economy version of cave living, smaller and more compact and with traces of Roman occupation such as the preserved and rehabilitated bridge/aqueduct
Matera is the Cadillac of cave houses and Paintin’ Peggie was thrilled walking around there…
After those visits, it was a day hanging about in Trani (CrossCountry Bob believes in time off from time off), the next stop was the white, hilltop town of Ostuni. On the way to Ostuni there was a mandatory detour to the Unesco certified (that should have been a clue) village of Alberobello which consists of round houses called trulli
Unfortunately, Alberobello had become the classic tourist specialty. How to ruin something interesting in one easy step. CrossCountry Bob has a phrase to apply to such places: “We came, We saw, We went”. Through the years CrossCountry Bob had learned that descriptive words and phrases such as “stunning”, “fantastic” and “cannot be missed” sometimes describe places that are not entirely stunning, not soooooo fantastic and can certainly be missed.
Ostuni is a white town on a hill with thick city walls (did CrossCountry Bob mention before that a LOT of Italy is filled with hilltop towns as such spots were easier to defend against invaders and Italy had plenty of those over the centuries after the Roman Empire fell into ruin).
In Ostuni, CrossCountry Bob picked a spot in the old town with a rooftop terrace looking toward the duomo on the hill
Our Ostuni place had a full kitchen (as did Trani). CrossCountry Bob and Paintin’ Peggie knew the east coast of Italy would be a time for cooking our own food. Two weeks of Italian restaurants was lovely eating but there are limits (and we reached them). Besides, shopping in Italian markets is a part of the local cultural experience that CrossCountry Bob and Paintin’ Peggie are partial to. It was interesting to see how regular Italians go about daily living (we already know how they dry the laundry)..
As it turned out, much of the coast in the area of Ostuni is flat and featureless. The beaches are okay but the town itself is more interesting with its hilltop perch and some ancient olive groves on the slopes.
Seeking a more dramatic coastline, it was into the trusty black Fiat and a drive south to the tip of the heel – Santa Maria di Leuca. A lovely spot and very few tourists (you remember that CrossCountry Bob and Paintin’ Peggie like to be the only tourists in sight)! On the way, a brief stop in Lecce with deep roots in the Middle Ages.
As by now there has been a considerable amount of driving by CrossCountry Bob, it is perhaps the ideal time to talk a bit about driving in Italy. Some of you may recall that when CrossCountry Bob and Paintin’ Peggie drove across Canada in their RV, Winnie, CrossCountry Bob thought it was a perfect test of a relationship. If you could survive a few months together in an RV there was hope! Well, it turns out that the RV test was nothing more than a simple, qualifying test. The REAL exam was driving into Italian cities and towns, trying to find a hotel using Google Maps on the iPhone – CrossCountry Bob driving, Paintin’ Peggie holding the iPhone and muttering crazy words as the Google Maps did strange flip flops and, yes, made mistakes that made no sense (which CrossCountry Bob attributed to the Italian elevation of style above practicality. All the meanwhile, dealing with the following:
1). Italian drivers love to use the horn;
2) the use of turn signals is entirely optional;
3). A tailgating distance in Canada is to the Italian driver a broad expanse of space to be eliminated by coming as close to your bumper as possible – and then maybe even closer still;
4) the right of way belongs mostly to whoever gets there first;
5) small, narrow medieval streets don’t mean go slow;
6) crosswalks are maybe yes, maybe no.
7) if you wait your turn, you wait forever.
Well, CrossCountry Bob is happy to report that he and Paintin’ Peggie somehow passed the exam although there were moments when those Itilian drivers must have been secretly laughing at those two Canadians sinking in the noisy chaos.
Now, back to regularly scheduled programming…having survived driving on the east coast of Italy, how about going west to the notorious Amalfi coast. No problem for CrossCountry Bob,he was keen to try that. Home base was Vietri dal Mare, the first of the Amalfi coast villages…
Okay, here we go, driving along the Amalfi coast…
Late October is shoulder season, so the traffic was just bad,not impossible. Our host said in the summer it would take two days to drive what we did in one day. Paintin’ Peggie thought one day was enough. But it was beautiful and a bucket list item. But by then it was donkey time.
Well, right about now, CrossCountry Bob and Paintin’ Peggie are feeling just about like those donkeys – made it all the way to the top, saw the sights but now just ready to get on home (those donkeys are used to carry supplies to cliffside houses that the roads can’t reach).
For the donkeys – back to the stable. For CrossCountry Bob and Paintin’ Peggie – WestJet Rome to Calgary and then Calgary to Kelowna. Just over a month away in total!
Ciao for now.
CrossCountry Bob