18th April Thursday
We woke this morning to a glorious clear blue sky and ate breakfast outside just round the corner from our room. The whole property is truly magnificent - beautifully kept flowers, shrubs and trees everywhere, rustic touches and traditional flourishes in every nook - so much charm and character. We were joined by 3 cats who begged politely for a bit of bacon and were, of course, obliged.
Afterwards we headed off to Bari about 50km north along the coast where we wanted to explore the Old Town district.
First we managed to catch (get it!) the back end of the fisherman's market selling a variety of stuff including whole octopus. Next, after a short walk through narrow streets with four storey buildings each side and doorways that literally opened into peoples' kitchens, we bought hand made pasta from the stalls making Orecchiette on the street with the same name. Later John had this for lunch with minced beef and tomato sauce and it was really nice. We also walked round the outside of the castle, Castello Svevo di Bari, then settled down for a coffee overlooking the cathedral square. Very civilised!
Next came the two obligatory churches, both beautiful in different ways. The first (the cathedral), Saint Sabinus, felt almost naked inside - the white stonework had hardly any adornments but downstairs in the crypt the altar and the ceiling were spectacular. The second, Basilica di San Nicola, had the most impressive painted ceiling from front to back, with beautiful scenes surrounded by gold edging.
Walking back along the city wall, looking out to sea, we picked up lunch at a cafe called La Ciclatera Sotto Il Mare - John with the local pasta and Liz with a caprese salad with fantastic fresh mozzarella balls, plus the local speciality - small dried rings of some kind of salty dough, which were delicious.
On the way back to the hotel we stopped off at the sea front where the rocks are eroded naturally to form caves. Not massively spectacular, but nice to see it anyhow. Continuing the drive, we'd realised we'd been really lucky today as heavy rain was over our hotel area - Bari had been wonderfully warm, but not too warm a day for us.
Now back in the hotel, the rain has eased and we spent some time reading and fussing one of the hotel's cats before heading out for some food at the same place as last night (because it is the earliest opening restaurant around - 6pm, and has good food and service). The restaurant was warm and friendly as the night before and this time we tried the house liquer - limonchello, and we hope to go back again and try some more / buy some to take home ;)
We were finally able to relax again and really begin to enjoy our holiday as John's stoma kicked back into life and we could be confident that we weren't going to spend the next few days in an Italian hospital!
19th April Friday
We'd booked a tour of an olive oil farm, Masseria Pezze d'Aglio in Fasano, just a few miles down the road from the hotel, for the morning and it was amazing. The farm had old underground olive oil pressing works that dated back hundreds of years. We learnt all about how important olive oil was as a lamp oil rather than a cooking oil, in the past. The olive groves in Puglia have over 4 million examples of olive trees that are over 250 years old, and carbon dating has put many over 2,000 years old. We learned how originally the Romans planted the trees well spaced in a grid of 18m to ensure each tree got its share of water and light, and how in more modern times we have infilled with developments in irrigation. You can clearly see the older trees with newer trees interspersed. We then had a blind taste test of some different olive oils - very much like wine tasting, without getting drunk!
So next time you're buying oil in a supermarket, try to buy extra virgin (pressed with 24 hours of harvesting, low acidity) in a dark bottle to stop the daylight spoiling the smell and flavour, and get buy cold pressed as processing at higher temperatures spoils the quality. If you buy 'olive oil' it could be anything from a production point of view - and often closer to 'lamp oil'. From a price perspective, we paid 15 Euros for a 1 litre bottle of high quality oil made at the farm, which we bet would be £30 in a deli back home.
After lunch (last night's pizza) we headed out for Grotte di Castellana, a massive underground cave complex which truly was spectacular. The tour was at least 3km of walking underground and lasted getting on for 2 hours. There was a big cheer when the guide told us that there were lifts to get us back out!
The drive there and back was through beautiful rolling countryside which at times could have passed for North Yorkshire, with gentle hills and stone walls, with trulli houses, vines and olive trees giving it away that we were in Italy though! The trullis were the inspiration for the whole holiday, stemming from a black and white photo we saw on a pub wall in Wariwckshire once (what better reason for travelling 2000 miles?) The traditional Puglian houses have circular tiled roofs with a white top, and apparently historically they could be demolished in seconds by pulling the top out like a bath plug if the tax man was spotted heading your way...
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