Boots in the Oven

January 22, 2007: The last day. We see Bari, and then head home to Florence.

Eventually, all trips must come to an end, even if they are really cool ones through Sicily, Calabria, Basilicata, and Puglia.  (Not that I'm referring to a particular trip.  Just a thought.)  With this cliched truism in mind, we left our bags at our hotel in Bari and went to 1. kill time for a few hours and 2. put together a picnic for our seven-hour-plus train ride.

We headed straight back towards Bari Vecchia (Old Bari), with a brief stop at a wonderful salumeria.  One of the things I've learned to love about Italy is that you can just walk into these places, with their beautiful displays of delicious cured and cooked meats and so many lovely cheeses, and have them put together a sandwich for you.  I got my favorite, crema di gorgonzola with speck (equally good with prosciutto crudo - they're both raw cured hams), while Husbear asked for a taleggio and capocolla. 

They were, of course, delicious - though perhaps an unorthodox breakfast.  We then walked into a bar and got ourselves due cappucini, or cappucci as they call them in Bari.

Apparently, this is the time of day when the nonnas are out making their orecchiete pasta.  Bari is a town where people still do a lot of their living outside, whether it's making pasta, like this woman, grilling up tripe for the family, or having a smoke with members of your men's club.

Since we had already seen Bari's main sights the day before, the Cattedrale and the Basilica di San Nicola, we were really just wandering the streets without a particular destination in mind.  Except, perhaps, for somewhere where we could actually buy some food for the train!

This is why we went over to the piazza that's supposed to be home to a "racous street market", only to find perhaps ten vendors selling raw vegetables and fruits.  This was not exactly what we had in mind, so we wandered the back streets looking for an open ortofrutta or another salumeria.  Something with prepared food.

We still weren't having much luck - just eggplants and oranges and onions, not the makings of the best picnic ever - so we walked over to the castle.  It's our last castle... sad, huh? We're building up quite the list of visited castles in this crazy country...

This one seemed to be hosting some sort of exhibition, but it was closing soon (and we were starting to worry we wouldn't be able to find any food before everything shut for the pausa).  One of the fairly common elucidating historical signs was set up in front, and we read about moats and fortifications until our eye was caught by the business sponsoring this information:

My future sister-in-law is from Nebraska, and I'm sure she'd appreciate that the Barese have turned it into an exotic hair-cuttery.

We skirted back along the side of Bari Vecchia and found the port for departures to Greece (among other places).  I really wanted to go, but Husbear stopped me from marching into a ferry office and buying a deck-class ticket by reminding me that, yes, our vacation was almost done - but we were going back to Florence, for god's sack.

Looking through our guidebooks, we found mention of a salumeria that seemed like exactly what we were looking for, so we headed in that direction.  On the way, we walked down this street.  It might be a little hard to tell what's going on here.  The cars along the near curb are parked.  The line of cars next to them is double-parked, while the line to the far right is actual moving traffic.  Notice how nobody will actually park in the handicap spot, but they are more than happy to completely block access to it.

Eventually, we did find the salumeria we were looking for - that of Francesco di Carne.  It gleamed.  It was quite large, as salumerie go, with several separate counters (one for meat and cheese, one for prepared foods - rice and lasagne and such - and one for antipasti vegetables) and a fairly susbstantial dry-goods section.

We ended up spending quite a bit more there that we usually do on picnics, but everything looked so wonderful it was hard to resist.

We ambled back to the hotel, grabbed our bags, and walked over to the train station with way too much time to spare.  Oh, well.  We certainly felt like we had seen most of Bari, so why not be at the train station really early?

Our first train was a six-hour Eurostar to Bologna, and we had our little group of four seats to ourselves.  We almost immediately broke out our picnic funfood and giant plastic wine bottle, bringing stares and chuckles from people sitting near us as well as the conductor.

We went with four different types of vegetarian antipasti.  From left to right, we have absolutely delicious sun-dried tomatoes with capers (we had a long discussion about how much we HATED sun-dried tomatoes before getting to Italy), a mushroom mix with porcinis and other yummy little guys, grilled whole artichoke hearts, and cipolline agrodolce - sweet and sour little grilled onions in balsamic vinegar.  And somehow we bought a roll that was entirely hollow.  When we bought it, the girl behind the counter did tell us it was vuoto (empty), but I thought she just meant that it wasn't stuffed.

So, this was delicious, and we snacked a little and put everything away.  Husbear napped for a while while I watched the suburbs of Bari give way to olive groves and eventually the sea.  A few hours later (long train, really) we re-unpacked all of our food, this time adding the risotto we had bought (reminded me favorably of rice casserole with Campbell's soup, honestly), some new bread, and a chunk of caprino leggermente stagionato (lightly aged goat cheese) that stunk our hands up for the remainder of the evening.  But was savory and delicious.

We changed trains in Bologna, and sitting there, on the Eurostar connection back to Florence, we realized... people around us were speaking English!  I hadn't realized just how little English we had been hearing (ourselves excluded, o'course) until all of a sudden it was around me again.

We sprung for a taxi back to our apartment, where we learned that Husbear's pack, stuffed with bottles and jars and boxes and cans, weighed in at 43 kilos.  That's just about 95 pounds.  Mine was a slightly less respectably insane 22 kilos.

That's it.  That's our trip to Sicily and the Mezzogiorno.  Look for a wrapup post here in a few days, with some fun statistics and pictures.  We wish you all could have been along with us for the ride.

as always, girlie.

Alberobello to Bari: More adorable gnome-houses, and jolly St. Nick

On our last morning staying in Alberobello, we decided to... explore Alberobello.  Novel, no?  Since we hadn't actually seen the town's trulli by daylight, we walked over to the Rione Monti to take a look at the more commercial area.

Things were still pretty quiet, though there were a few other people wandering around with cameras.  The owners of the various trulli shops were out in force, trying to get people in their shops ("senza impegno", they'd say, or "no obligation" - though it's always a little tough for me not to feel odd, browsing a tiny shop where you are the only customer and then leaving with a smile).  It was the first time I heard an Italian shopkeeper greet tourists in Japanese!

There is still a graffiti problem in Alberobello, though it seems completely incongruous with the old, neatly kept houses.  Seeing this in a town of 10,000 people and a bunch of little gingerbread cone houses did make me laugh, though - yes, kid, you are down with the ghet-to.

The trulli are all pretty homogeneous, with the only major differences being in the types of toppers chosen and whether a symbol is painted on the front of the roof.  While it's fun to imagine owning a trulli, it seems that dealing with all of the regulations that keep them looking so uniform is likely very, very limiting.

We grabbed a quick snack of a couple of types of bread, one topped with eggplant and one stuffed with tomato. So, we got to eat in a trullo – for only about 6 euros. Not bad.

Walking back to our hotel, we spotted signs for the trullo sovrano. Unfortunately, the trulli museum we had wanted to go to, to hopefully find out more about how people actually lived in the trulli (like the mill museum in Sicily, or the sasso museum in Matera), was closed for a vacation – so we walked over to this trullo sovrano thinking it would be closed as well.

Nope – open! Yay! Turns out the trullo sovrano is the only two-story true trullo. (The museum is housed in a two-story trullo, but it was built with mortar and basically looks like a regular building with a cone roof.) The trullo sovrano, on the other hand, was built when the regulations regarding mortar were still in place. 

Plus, there's a tiny hole in the wall in the entrance through which you could shoot people.  Just in case.

The trullo itself was very interesting.  It obviously belonged to a man of some means, since there were two kitchens... and a second floor!    Trulli are usually one-room homes, and when you want to add another room, you knock a hole in the wall and build another room with another cone roof.  This trullo was like a little complex.

Husbear signed the guest book for us.

Now, it was really getting on towards time for us to get to Bari (we had to return our car), so back to the hotel.  Here's a picture of something you know you have to do all too often on vacation...

Taking the highway to Bari turned out to be no problem - we didn't even see any accidents on our way this time - and we returned the car just in time to catch the hourly bus into the center of town.  We dropped our bags at our hotel, just a couple of blocks from the train station, and walked towards Bari Vecchia (Old Bari), hoping to find something to eat.

Alas, we were thwarted once again by the pausa.  Everything was closed, though we did eventually find a place that would sell us some of their old panzerotti.  You'd think stuffed fried breadpockets would be good when they congealed three hours after lunch, but no.  Husbear also bought an arancino that made us desperately miss Sicily's.

We did make it down to the maze of narrow streets that make up Bari Vecchia, and got thoroughly lost for a little while.  We were hoping to see women out in the streets making orecchiete (the little ear-shaped pasta), but the streets were pretty well deserted for the pausa.

We did have a good time, just walking and taking pictures and trying to find the Basilica di San Nicola.  (We had two maps, neither of which actually gave us any street names in Bari Vecchia.  This makes navigating a tad tricky.)

Finally, we rounded a corner to see some desultory tourist stands, selling books about Bari and baskets and postcards, and we knew we were close.  Walking through a small arch, we found ourselves in front of the Basilica di San Nicola. 

That's Jolly St. Nick, everyone!  The patron saint of pawnbrokers, Russians, sailors... and Christmas.  Sort of.  His remains were brought to Bari by Barese sailors about a thousand years ago, back when any city that had any pretensions of being important had a big-name patron saint.  His being here is the reason that today, you can fly from Moscow to Bari one-way non-stop for like 50 euros.  Ah, economics.

His actual remains are in an ornate box down under the church, in a crypt.  They hold Russian Orthodox services there once a week, even though it's a Catholic church, and their treasury has some beautifully worked Russian icons.

We left the Basilica and walked to the lungomare (the road along the water) just in time to catch the tail end of a fish market and a beautiful sunset.

While we were at the fish market, Husbear's brother Brandog called us - he and his lovely lady fiancee have set their wedding date!  June 16th, here we come!  Congratulations to them.

Flush with happiness and with our planning hats on, we walked into a vini sfusi shop (they sell wine on tap, and we love them) to buy some wine for our long train trip back to Florence the next day.  Somehow, we bought a liter and a half of wine, in a big jaunty plastic water bottle... it was the only size bottle they had!

We got back to our hotel, dropped off our novelty wine bottle, and got changed for dinner.  We strolled with the surging passeggiata back towards Bari Vecchia, with the intention of having dinner at a little place called Vini e Cucina.  We showed up scandalously early - just after 8 - and were the only people there.

Perhaps marking ourselves as tourists like this is what caused the waiter to start off with us a little surly.  Since this was the menu,

the waiter rattled off our choices.  I was a little surprised, because unlike the awesome restaurant we had been to in Lecce, where the list of primi and secondi seemed endless, our choices for the primi were "Risotto o pasta."  We said "Tutte le due", or both.  Then, he asked about secondi.  "Carne o pesce?" I thought this was a little odd, not hearing anything about the preparation, but I figured they might just have two secondi a night.  So, again "tutte le due", and we asked for water and wine -  and off the waiter went, coming back quite a while later with a half-liter bottle of water (!) and a jug of actually pretty good house wine.

The antipasta was a plate of a few slices of mixed cheeses and meats, and some very good marinated raw zucchini.  While we were eating our antipasti, an obviously Italian couple came in... and we heard the waiter rattle off a much longer menu to them!  Primi: their choices were between pasta, pasta with chickpeas, or risotto, so not that different... but for secondi, the waiter asked them if they wanted bistecca di cavallo (horse), maiale (pork), fritto misto di pesce (mixed fish fry),  seppie ripiene (stuffed squid) or gamberi grigliati (grilled shrimp)! 

This kind of pissed me off, so when he slapped our primi down on the table a minute later I asked him in Italian what kind of secondi we were getting.  He said he didn't understand me.  I asked again, and he glared and said "Bistecca di maiale e fritto misto di pesce.  C'e un problema?" I said no, no problem, that sounded fine, but I thought I had heard him tell the other table about shrimp?  He said "Si, nel fritto ci sono gamberi," in the fried mix there are shrimp.  I knew this wasn't what I had heard him offer the other table, but I didn't want to get punched, so I dropped it.

The primi were good - cavatelli with a tasty tomato sauce, tweaked with some of the region's very strong ricotta forte, and a oven-baked risotto flavored with just a few mussels.  Greasy, like my Barese grandma used to make.

But, then the secondi came out.  By this time, the restaurant had started to fill up, and we heard him offer the expanded menu list to every Italian.  Every single one. We were hoping perhaps he had chosen the two best secondi to give us... but no.

This fritto misto was sad, greasy and limp and bready.  The fish was bone-in and head-on, which, fine... but I swear I got a little fish bone stuck through a taste bud (urgh!  I can feel it when I write this!!!) which is not a fate I'd wish on anyone.  The bistecca di maiale, pork steak was overcooked. (No it wasn't just overcooked- it was a thin greasy sad pork chop cooked all to hell and foisted off on a couple of tourists as actual food. -L. Pants)

When we had been reduced to poking at the secondi, hoping they'd get better, a different waiter brought out this hysterical fruit bowl.

He asked us where we were from, and in Italian I told him that Husbear's studying Italian cooking in Florence, but that the food in Florence was very different than that of Bari.  We talked for a couple of minutes about Italian food, and our regular waiter's head whipped around.  He had the grace to look a little embarrassed.

I mean, I understand that they might get some people in there that don't speak any Italian... but try us, OK?  Restaurant Italian is not that difficult, and it's usually the first thing tourists learn!

Anyway.  OK antipasti, delicious primi, gross secondi.  Good housemade limoncello.  Service assmonkey style.  30 euros for the two of us.  I have to give them a mixed review, but here's their address if you want it:

Osteria Vini e Cucina: Strade Vallisa 23, Bari Vecchia.  338.212.03.91

(I really, really wanted to like this place.  They have all of the trappings of authenticity and the history to back it up. Unfortunately, I think they haven't been able to assimilate the influx of tourists that has resulted from their high praise in the travel guides.  Maybe on a different night things would have been better but as it stands they ultimately were only mediocre. -L. Pants)

The next post is about our last day on our trip!  ohmahgoodness.  We are off to a Superbowl party now, so GO BEARS!

January 21, 2007 - Lunch, it's CrazyTasty! and beautiful towns around Alberobello.

After waking up to discover the breakfast room's coffee maker was out of order (at least they had tea...) we hopped into the tiny car to take a look at the towns around Alberobello.

I could see how getting out of Alberobello would be even more important in the summer - that place is seriously set up for tourists!  Some shops had signs on the outside only in Japanese, English and German - not even Italian.

Originally, we were going to visit Castellana Grotte, which is supposed to be an amazing series of caves, but when we arrived we found out that we would have to wait an hour for a two-hour tour, and that English tours aren't offered this time of year except to groups that book ahead.  Since we were pretty short on time, we scrapped that idea and headed towards Ostuni.

We decided to make our first stop Ostuni because when the Rough Guide describes it as "one of Italy's most stunning small towns," well, what are you supposed to do?

Ostuni felt like the Cyclades.  It's a whitewashed town set on top of a hill, with lots of winding lanes that turn into stairs.  You can never tell if the path you're following might turn into the entrance of a home, or if it might just turn under a building and widen back out.  It seems touristy (we heard some English-English), but not overly so, and it is very pretty.

The town is just made for wandering.  We checked out the main piazza, and took a look at the cathedral,

before deciding to have an early lunch at about 12:30.

We walked into Osteria Piazzetta Cattedrale, on the strength of guidebook recommendations and their insane-looking 10 euro per person antipasti platter.  They were totally empty when we walked in, but when we asked if they had space for lunch for two the waiters looked nervous and began to confer.  I asked if perhaps they weren't open yet, 12:30 being very early for lunch around here, and they said no, they were afraid they were totally booked - but we could have one table for two since it wasn't booked until 1:30.  It was, after all, Sunday lunch.

Relieved, we took a seat, and were brought a bread basket with Pugliese bread, walnut bread, traditional little round crackers, a free glass of sweet lightly sparkling white wine, and a warm piece of tomato bread.  Before we had even ordered.   

We ordered just the antipasti for two and a bottle of house wine. I couldn’t tell if the waiter was relieved that we’d be quick or perturbed at the tiny order, but he was very gracious. Very quickly, the food started coming.

There was fresh ricotta with tomatoes and arugula, which was delicious and very light,

and then more fresh ricotta topped with toasted almonds and garnished with a little olive oil.  We liked it, but it really needed a touch of sweet with the almonds - perhaps a light honey, instead of oil?

Then, they brought out a dish that for us was a highlight - a crepe basket filled with a thick cauliflower soup.  I'm definitely learning to love this lowly vegetable, though I'd probably like just about anything pureed with a bunch of cream.  The crepe was a lot of fun to eat, too.

There were also these bruschetta, made with a baccala' (salt cod) paste - nice, just the right amount of fishiness,

and these adorable little meatballs, perhaps the size of the last knuckle on my pinky finger?  They would be really cute for a party.  This started the heavier antipasti.

We also were served a fried veggie ball with mint, which was like an extra-tasty felafel but made for boring pictures (think little balls of fried with a dot of pinkish sauce between them), an eggy eggplant souffle with tomato sauce, and little cigars of phyllo dough filled with very thinly sliced artichoke and served with a carrot salad made with very strange green and purple carrots.

After this succession of tiny plates, we were - technically - full, but we had seen a secondo listed on the menu that we really wanted to try out.  And we had a little room, right?  We debated for a little while, as by this time the restaurant had started to fill up with 1 o'clock and 1:15 reservations, and we had seen several other people turned away... but this did not end up keeping us from ordering the brasciola di asino con sugo.

Asino... well, we'd eaten horse, why not eat ass?  Donkey, that is.  (Is a donkey a domesticated ass, or did I make that up?)

In a slightly spicy tomato sauce, very much like the horse.  Husbear's teachers at Apicius told him that it's really common in Italy to feed teenagers horse and ass, because they are high-protien low-fat meats.  I have to say... I liked the horse better. More meaty flavor.

Just to round off what had somehow turned into quite the decadent lunch, we ordered two limoncelli - fatti in casa, or made in house.  Why not?

The bill for all of that wasn't as bad as you'd think, looking at all that food.  No, I won't give you the exact number.

We left the restaurant and found our car, which was just about completely parked in by a large SUV.  Where are we again?  (By large SUV, though, I mean a Toyota RAV-4... I think my idea of what a "large car" is has changed a little.)  We did manage to get the car out, after a little maneuvering, and left town towards Cisternino.  Goodbye to Ostuni!

Between Ostuni and Cisternino, we found this trullo for sale.  There are a lot for sale - get in on the ground floor!  I don't have any idea about prices, no.

We also saw a sign reading "Dolmen di Montalbano, II millenio a.c." - this means 2 millenia before Jeebus.  So, we turned.

This is a dolmen.  We were the only people there.  It was very cool.  (And here's more information about the little Neolithic tombs.)

Our books had two things to say about Cisternino.  One, the town is nicknamed "La Vera", or the real thing, and two, they have a tradition of "fornello pronto", meaning shops where you can pick out a cut of meat and they'll cook it for you.  We were interested in both, but after that lunch, we weren't going to be taking part in the second.

It is a cute little town, more like Ostuni with the whitewashed Greek-style streets, and less like Alberobello.  No trulli in town.  But very pretty, and some of the streets were perfumed with the scent of cooking steak.  Seriously.

We loved all the little doors at various levels throughout the town - here's a good example.  I can't imagine there's such a thing as a standard-size door in this town.

Many of the staircases leading into people's houses were seriously steep, but we saw a couple of little old ladies in black taking them like nobody's business.  (I feel like the railing on the left was added out of concession to OSHA or the Italian equivalent, not like it's there because people use it.)

Since it was during the pausa, there weren't many people out - though the bar we went into to order caffes was full of people watching a soccer game on TV.  Other than that, things were pretty quiet.  I could see wanting to spend a few days here.

We didn't spend too much time in Cisternino, though, because we wanted to make it to Locorotondo before dark.  (Still hamstrung by that early sunset.) 

Locorotundo did not get its name from round crazy people, as you speakers of Spanish might think, but rather from the fact that it's set up in a circle.  It's still a knot of tiny streets, though.  We followed a funeral procession for a little way through these narrow lanes, thinking the whole time that the hearse was going to get stuck.  It didn't - it's almost like they might have known where they were going?

These streets aren't whitewashed in the same way as Ostuni and Cisternino, and had a lot more of the ochre and sienna - colors I think of as Italian.

There were just a few trulli in Locorotondo, but when we went to the main piazza to check out its view, we could see them marching off into the distance.

We hung out with the locals for a while, reading the names on the town's war monument, and then went back to our car.  We felt a pretty good sense of accomplishment - dipping our toes in three towns in one day?  I loved having the car.  I wouldn't want one anywhere near where we're living in Florence, but in these small towns, it was fantastic.

Back at the hotel in Alberobello, we relaxed and watched some TV - for instance, the famous "Chi Vuol Essere Milionario" - popular in the states as well.  Then, we watched Strange Days in Italian, a movie that I haven't seen in English but which I imagine is just as stupid in its original language.  Though it's still sort of surprising to see breasts on network TV, even if they're just Juliette Lewis'.

It took us a while to feel hungry, but eventually Husbear felt that he should go get some food.  It turned out that that same Pizzeria Creperia 2001 was the only thing open, so this time he bought pucce, which were completely different than the ones we had in Lecce despite having the same name.  These were sandwiches fixed on baked pizza bread.  Yum!

Husbear did have a bit of a brain fart where he forgot "cotoletta" is a pounded fried veal cutlet, and ordered it thinking it was some sort of mushroom.  (He asked what it was, and the guy behind the counter said "BUONO.  MOLTO BUUUOONNNNO."  So he felt awkward changing it after that.) (These sandwiches are brilliant. I totally love the idea of the pizza-paninni hybrid.  Perhaps I could have choosen some more advisable fillings, but you just wait - these are going on the Must Make This at Home List and they are going to kick ass. -L. Pants)

He also got a few fried tomato and mozarella filled panzerottini.  Yummy dinner, but extra-filling.

Tomorrow - our last morning with the car, and on to our last stop - Bari!

January 20, 2007: Crazy Cheese and our first trulli!

Once again thankful to get out of the place where we had spent the night, we ate our mediocre breakfast (this time given an odd wrinkle – everything was self-service except the milk, which the barista poured into our cereal for us) and got ripped off by the hotel, which I explained in the last post.

Kinda angry, we set off for Troia. It’s a town, right near Lucera, whose name translates to “slut.” The etymology might have to do with Helen of Troy, but nobody can figure out why the town would be named after her.

It has a very pretty little cathedral, and tidy streets that were just waking up for market day.

We stayed long enough to buy a couple bottles of the wonderful wines that are made in the area, and then left town in the direction of the Castel del Monte, one of Puglia’s best-known sites and one that we had frankly not heard of before getting to the area.

On the way, we passed some more of the strange little stone huts we’d seen the day before. I’m still not sure what their purpose is – I was thinking for shepherds, since they’re so small, but then why are they so close together?

We stopped for gas in the tiny hamlet of Giardinetto (small garden), where the man who came up to our car must have heard us speaking in English – he said, in a pretty thick Italian accent, “Fill ‘er up?” We gaped at him, and said “Si!” We then asked him in Italian if we were in Giardinetto, and he said in English “Yup – you lookin’ for someone?” We weren’t, but we thanked him for his help.

Then we passed this surreal house. Any guesses on the statues? Husbear thinks one of them is supposed to be JFK.

Back to normalcy – we reached the Castel del Monte, which is a strange castle, another legacy of Frederick the Second. Perfectly octagonal, with no moat or drawbridge or much evidence at all that it was used for war. There also aren’t any servant’s quarters, or evidence of its having been intended as a residence. The literature we read inside implied that its probable use was symbolic, since the castle can be seen from miles and miles away and would have been a great show of the power of the Swabians.

The fact of its being octagonal means there are eight trapezoidal rooms on each floor. Doors lead from one to the next, but not all of them connect to the central octagonal courtyard – another reason it would have been pretty impractical as a residence. Spiral staircases occupy the towers.

We spent a good bit of time at the Castel – there was a so-so photography exhibit in a couple of the rooms, and some terrific information on the history of the castle and how much time and work went into restoration. Eventually, we left with the idea of stopping in Ándria, the home of the indescribably awesome burrata cheese.

We first had burrata at a restaurant here in Florence called il Pizzaiolo. The menu called it Mozarella di Burro, and we got overly excited thinking we were eating donkey mozzarella. We are occasionally not so smart. It’s actually a little pouch made of mozzarella, filled with long tendrils of mozzarella odds and ends and topped off with cream. It goops cream satisfyingly when you first stick a fork in it and is worth seeking out for its fun interactivity.

We did find some very nice burrata, which Husbear bought along with the rest of a spread for a picnic – some prosciutto and capocollo, rolls, wine, water, and these little marinated fried fish we’d been seeing in stores. Everything was good, though the fish turned out to be an acquired taste – a very vinegary, fishy acquired taste. Interesting, but not something I’m going to seek out here.

We spent the next hour or so driving south towards Alberobello, our eventual stop for the night. When we reached the town of Putignano, we spotted a cemetery and decided to take a closer look.

The outer ring of the cemetery, up against the walls, was lined with the family crypts. These small stone structures all had a very Art Deco kind of look to them, and indeed it appeared that they were mostly built during the 1920s. All of the ones we peered into were set up with chairs for mourners.

The center of the cemetery was taken up by long blocks, with plaques marking the final resting place of the deceased. I was most struck by the age difference of many of the couples – some husbands died thirty or even forty years before their wives, but they still shared a common plaque.

It was amazing how many fresh flowers there were on each of the gravestones. Several people came into the cemetery while we were there to replace wilting flowers. It looked like many families had even left jugs of water by the graves – perhaps for the gravekeepers to water their flowers?

Time to move on, so back to the car and onward to Alberobello!

We saw our first trullo on the road out of Putignano.

These wonderful little gnome-houses have a prosaic history. A local landowner, in the 14th century ordered the people living on his land to build their homes without mortar so he could evade tax laws. This little patch of Puglia is covered in trulli, with the largest concentration of them being in Alberobello.

The fact that these homes are approximately the cutest things EVER OMG means that Alberobello has become a bit of a bus-tour crazy town over the last few years. But, in January, we were hoping things would be different.

We found our hotel after only circling town twice and arrived at a door boasting a big sign: CHIUSO PER FERIE AL 22-1-07. Crap. Closed for vacation for two more days? But we had reservations! But then, a nice lady came and opened the door and explained to us that the owner was actually getting back that night. OK.

We dropped our bags, got a map from the front desk, and went to explore Alberobello.

There are two major areas of trulli in town. One, the Rione Monti, is full of trulli shops, trulli bars, trulli restarants, trulli discos, and dazed Japanese, American, German, and Italian tourists (at least in high season). The other Rione Aia Piccola, is still actually inhabited by Alberobellans. (Alberobellese?)

We started out in the commercial area, which was quite nice, as most of the shops were closed for the evening.

At the top of town, there’s a new church that’s been built to look like a trullo, to fit in with the neighborhood.

We then walked over to Rione Aia Piccola, and did a little wandering through the streets. Each trullo is topped with a different topper – some a simple ball, others with interesting geometric shapes – and many of the homes are also painted with white symbols on the rock. These can be Christian (symbols of the Trinity, etc.) or magical (symbols of Saturn, or love, and so on).

The streets were just about empty except for us, and it was nice to be able to imagine people just going about their business with the backdrop of these oh-so-different buildings.

Then, for budgetary reasons (the menu prices were a bit of a shock – hey, tourist town!) we stopped in a packed little pizzeria that I think was called Pizzeria Creperia 2001, sat at a counter, and ordered a pizza. Not to shabby, for just some random place on a corner.

Tomorrow, day trip out of Alberobello to Ostuni, where we have an amazing lunch, and we check out the sweet little town of Cisternino.

User Error in the Gargano

This day, a day for driving around the Gargano Peninsula (otherwise known as Italy's spur), went really well overall.  With a couple of hilarious blips I can only attribute to the intoxication and complications inherent to having a car and being in Italy.

We quit Manfredonia!™ early, which was certainly made easier by the clanging and slamming coming from elsewhere in the hotel.  Some seriously thin walls, people.  We had already decided that our first stop would be Monte Sant'Angelo, a town that's been hosting pilgrims and tourists since the Archangel Michael appeared there in 490 AD.  He left a cloak and a footprint.

We were following signs through the town to the Santuario, when all of a sudden the road we were on was filled with speed bumps.  I was thinking to myself, "This certainly is an odd thing to do to a road" when Husbear yelled "STAIRS!"

Yeah, we drove down the stairs.  Usually they're marked a little better than that, to avoid just such a situation.  Luckily, we had only gone down a few, and we were actually able to back slowly up to the top.  Here's a view of our staircase from below.

We found a place to park on relatively level ground and walked over to the Santuario.  It's in a grotto well below street level, so you take a series of rather steep stairs to get there.  The staircase is lined with tracings of the hands and feet of pilgrims, left there in rememberance of the footprint left by Mike.

The Santuario is not heavily decorated, but has a lot of solemnity nevertheless due to its postion in a cave.  It was full of people praying.  We tried to be inconspicuous and read our guidebook quietly in the back.

We climbed the stairs back to the top and went in search of the town's traditional treat - ostie ripiene, or stuffed Hosts.  Strangely enough, these are the communion wafers used in Catholic Mass (unconsecrated, o'course) sandwiched around candied almonds.  (Get it - Hosts?  Ha!) Another way the town's been marketing its status as an important pilgrimage site.  Hilarious.

After a minor freakout caused by the Smart Car's refusing to start - did you know it has an immobilization setting? - we headed out of town, skirting the ridge above the main road and the sea.

Olives, planted in neat little orchards or in haphazard lines marching up hills, were all we could see.  Seriously, Puglia has everywhere else I've seen in Italy beat when it comes to olives.

We saw a sign that makes no sense.  My best guess is that it's a point to turn off if you're on fire.  Safety first, in the Gargano!

Stop #2 was a beach resort called Vieste.  Apparently this area is packed twenty feet high with tourists during the summer, but in January - nobody. 

And not much open.  We found a bar for due caffé doppi (we brought out the big guns - a double espresso) and climbed up to the top of town to find the Chinaca Amara, or Bitter Stone.

Something like 5000 citizens of the town lost their lives here, beheaded when the Turks sacked the town in 1554.  Now, it's just a small piece of a house that's grown up on top of it.  People have such a talent for moving on, don't they?

We left Vieste, heading further around the coast to Péschici.  The roads we took were very small, winding through heavy trees - and lots and lots of shuttered beach hotels, campsites, and resorts.  We were the only car on the road, but we passed a lot of signs indicating that the area was subject to horrible traffic congestion.  It was eerie - the ghosts of summer playtime were all around us.

Or perhaps it was just a cow or three.

We did eventually reach Péschici, where we found lots of closed gelaterie and pizzerie and one little salumeria.  So we bought sammiches with the local caciocavallo cheese, a big jar of giardiniera (just like Chicago) and some Pringles, and ate them in the car while driving and taking one-handed photographs of the town.

From Péschici, we didn't really have any more planned stops - so we drove through the northern part of the Gargano just admiring the trees and the hills and a few small shuttered resort towns.  And the cows, some of which appeared to be grazing on the side of a very steep hill.

Finding ourselves near San Giovanni Rotondo, the pilgrimage point for the most recognizable religious saint after John Paul II, we realized we had to check it out.  Padre Pio was a Cappucin monk who died in 1968 and was actually canonized by John Paul II.  His bearded, haloed visage smiles beatifically from behind the counters of almost every small alimentari and restaurant and souvenir shop south of Naples, so we had to at least see what was up.

What was up was a giant tourist industry that has swallowed the town of San Giovanni Rotondo.  We got there and saw tents selling statues of Padre Pio, from palm-sized to life size; votive candles with his face on the side; icons and posters and T-shirts and keychains.  He started a hospital while living there which is now supposed to be one of the best in Italy, but it's surrounded by parking hawkers demanding 2 euros an hour to park.  This display actually made me really angry - the town benefiting off of these poor, suffering people, who travel hoping Padre Pio will send them a miracle - but then I realized, what should they do?  They get up to 8 million pilgrims a year.

Anyway, we ended up hightailing it out of town without stopping, and went towards another small town - Rignano Gargánico.  On the way, some random sign exhorted us to pull off onto a dirt road to visit the centopozzi, or hundred wells - and who were we to argue?

The wells themselves turned out to be giant municipal-looking bricked holes in the ground filled with a gloopy sludge - so not too cool, but there were these really neat small stone huts all over the place.  We were heading to the trulli region the next day (more about that later) - so we were interested in small homes built from stone.

After a bit more driving, we did eventually reach Rignano Gargánico.  The town was small, and we didn't stop, but we did pull over just outside when the view of the road we'd be taking brought us up short.

It looks like a commercial, doesn't it?

The road wound down from the hills of the Gargano into the plains of the Tavoliere, where we would be meeting up with the main autostrada.  For a moment, the olives gave way to fields of strong-smelling fennel, perfuming the air with their delicious anisey goodness.  (The fennel we get here in Florence is nowhere near as pungently wonderful as this stuff.)

We found the main road, and stayed on it for a little while before reaching the turnoff to Lucera.  When we got to the road, we noticed that the sign for the turnoff had been marked through with duct tape, but we shrugged and took the road anyway.  We went for about 50 yards before a hole in the road almost swallowed the tiny ForTwo.

Husbear, of course, voted for pressing on, and while I was thinking that perhaps this road wasn't actually in use any more, I acquiesced.  About a kilometer of slow driving over bumps and around holes ensued, until we came to a giant black and white striped sign blocking the road.

So, back the way we came.  Not sure why the sign was still up at all for that turnoff, as Husbear reports the road behind the black and white sign appeared to have fallen down a ten-foot cliff.

We found another way into Lucera, with this intimidatingly futuristic war machine looming over us much of the way - it definitely has a Lucas-like vibe to it.  And no, I'm not sure what it is.

The only directions we had for the hotel in Lucera was that it was outside the old town gate, of which there are usually four, so again with the getting lost.  We did eventually get directions and find the hotel, La Balconata Due, which I am going to recommend everyone STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM.

According to our book, they ran a cheaper albergo inside the city walls.  When Husbear asked about it on booking, he was told it was closed.  So we booked at the Balconata 2, though it was more than we wanted to pay, because Lonely Planet also said the rooms were decorated with an eye for style and the views over the plains of the Tavoliere were impressive.

Roight.  Check out this eye for style.  (And I won't include a picture of the view, which was of the parking lot and restaurant outside.  Truly breathtaking.)

Plus, when we left, they told us the price had gone up by ten euros and the albergo was in fact open, and denied ever having told us differently.  AVOID.  These guys had a monopoly on Luceran hotels for too long, and it obviously went to their heads, but there are now other places to stay.

Ahem.

We left the hotel and took part in the passeggiata, traversing pretty much the whole town.

It's a very late town - most restaurants don't open for dinner until 8:30.  We found a place that looked likely - Lupus in Fabula, again a recommendation - and ate a little after 9... not very good, though the wine from the region is excellent.  (Seriously, if you put "sugo della nonna," or "grandma's sauce," on your menu, you better make sure it's not just a watery tomato sauce.  Especially if you have the waiters telling people it's salsa di cinghiale, or wild boar sauce.  And stay away from the microwave when reheating antipasti, ok?)

I still liked Lucera better than Manfredonia!™, so there's that.

Tomorrow, we eat delicious burrata (a crazily creamy mozzarella, which is not made from donkey milk, even if we stupidly thought it was when we first met it), see a castle that's actually quite cool, and visit a town that means "slut" in Italian.

Traveling to Manfredonia!(tm) - It's a Manfred kind of place!

Another travel day ahead of us, we packed up our bags and a scrummy picnic lunch and caught a midmorning train, heading north to Bari.

The train went through olive orchard after olive orchard.  I've never SEEN so many olives, and we live in Tuscany!  These were very occasionally interspersed with a field of wispy, fernlike fennel or cabbagey artichokes.  But mostly, olives.

The train was a regional service, so it stopped at lots of little dusty stations miles from the actual towns they served.  In each, our conductor got off and gave a small package to men waiting at the station. Spies?

When we started to get hungry, we broke out our lunch, all from the nice grocer next to the hotel.  A small bunch of the hung, preserved tomatoes, two delicious sandwiches made on two different varieties of a local olive bread called pucce, some pickles, and a bottle of insanely wonderful rosato from the Salentine Peninsula (the heel).

Everything was very tasty, but the sammiches required a bit more attention to detail than we're used to - they were full of teeny olives that still.had.their.pits.  OMG.  The record for number of pits in one bite was 6, held by Husbear, so this wasn't just a couple of olives here and there.

Our train arrived in Bari, but we weren't going to be staying there for long.  We bought bus tickets from a tabaccheria just across from the station and hopped the city bus out to the airport.  It turned out to be packed with highschoolers, making out while older women looked on uncomfortably.

Our destination was actually the rental car agencies near the airport, and after signing an entire sheaf of papers and declining some insurance while taking others, we were given the keys to...

A SMART FORTWO!

This was actually perfect for us, as it was just the right size to fit the two of us and our luggage.  The rental deal we had through Thrifty, both times we rented cars on this trip, was just for a Smart Car - so we were never sure exactly what we were going to get (two-door? Four-door? Hatchback sedany-thing? Novelty tiny fun-car?) when we showed up at the counter.

So, we shoehorned ourselves into the ForTwo and started making our way up the coast.  We wanted to avoid the autostrada and see a little of the countryside, which meant we got lost in the small towns of Palese, Santo Spirito, Giovinazzo, and Molfetta - but whatever, we were on our way!  With fading light!

We eventually did find a larger road and took it up to the one town we knew we wanted to stop in - Trani, home to a portside cathedral billed as beautiful.

Arriving in town, we rapidly ran out of signs directing us to the cathedral, and when we saw a large building on the waterfront we pointed the car towards it.

WRONG.

We took some pictures of the pretty monastery/church anyway, and then left in the direction of the port we could now see in the distance.

Trani's cathedral is dedicated to St. Nicholas the Pilgrim (from whom I learned that pellegrino means pilgrim!), and it certainly does have a striking location right by the edge of the water.

The sun was setting, and the golden light reflected off the marble in that way that will always make me think of Italy.

If you follow the curve of the spit of land around, it comes to yet another of the Swabian Frederick the II's 13-th century castles.  I was seriously starting to get more than a little bored by these castles - they are everywhere, really everywhere, and to my untrained castle-viewing eye, they all look about the same.  This one was used as a prison until not too long ago.

The entrance to the cathedral is around, through a side door, past a portal with what appeared to be some extra-old graffiti.

When you go in the side door, you descend a bunch of steps into a crypt area underneath the curch.

We wandered for a little while, unable to find the door into the actual church (kind of a day of being lost, either in the car or on foot.  I think I'm finally learning to take it in stride), but we eventually found a small door in a corner that led us up into the massively gray structure.

The whole floor used to be a mosaic, but it's just about gone other than some fragments up by the altar.  Otherwise, it's just spare and huge.  One of the biggest we've been in down here.  It was certainly quite different from the baroque in Lecce - but I actually think I prefer the flights of fancy shown by those churches.  Of course, the one in Trani is quite a bit older - this one was started in 1097 and completed sometime in the 13th century.

Back to the car, we resolved to drive straight through to Manfredonia, our stop for the night.

Yes.  Manfredonia.  It's named after one of Frederick the II's kids, and is perhaps the funniest town name I've seen in Italy.  It sounds to me like a theme park based on the life of a man with enormous mustaches.  And it's in desperate need of a town theme song - I think if this were the States, it would have the tagline "It's a Manfred kind of place!" on the "Welcome to Manfredonia!" signs.  But, it certainly needs at the very least an exclamation point and trademark symbol, which I will happily give it through the end of this post.

I was really excited to go to Manfredonia!™ , because with a name like that, it's got to be great, right?

Right?

We checked into what seems to be one of the only hotels in town - on the outskirts, called Hotel Sipontum.  For 45 euros a night, we could forgive the paper-thin walls.

After unloading the bitty car, we drove the little remaining way into Manfredonia!™ and found a parking place near the town's one real major tourist attraction.

A castle left by Frederick II.  See what I mean?  Everywhere.  Husbear was at least happy to have something to photograph, but I was seriously underwhelmed by the continuing stream of castles and churches.

Oh, then we found a pretty church with a mosaic.

Our picnic lunch having been hours before, we started the search for a place to eat.  We had two guidebook recommendations - 1. closed and 2. $$$, so we went looking for a place we were told about by the hotel.  Closed.

Hrm.

Now, we started looking for anywhere that was open where we could perhaps get a pizza.  There were many little snack table places open, full of smiling kids eating dripping fried panzerotti, but I was really wanting a place where we could sit down.  We approached any number of places that looked like restaurants from afar, only to turn out to be baby clothing stores or machinery shops, and all the actual restaurants seemed to be closed up tight.

By now, it was getting on towards 8:30, so places that weren't open weren't going to open.

This is how we ended up at Brasserie Barcaiolo, breaking Husbear's rule of never trusting a place that is both Ristorante and Pizzeria.  (Osteria and pizzeria?  Fine.  Trattoria pizzeria? Perfect.  But not Ristorante Pizzeria.  They're shooting for both ends of the price spectrum and are not to be trusted.)

We were the only people there.  Again.  We ordered judiciously, skipping the antipasti in favor of just getting two pizzas, a side salad, and some fries - again being craved by Husbear.

When the pizzas were placed on our table, we dug in to find a gloppy, runny, rapidly congealing mess.

Husbear's face clouded.  "I know this.  This is low-moisture mozz!"

It's what extra-cheap pizzerias use, but rarely in Italy, because it keeps forever and melts very runnily and easily.  Unfortunately, it also congeals into a big goop of a mess.  Remember high school cafeteria pizzas, where you could take all the cheese off in one easy sheet and form it into an oily ball?  Low moisture mozz.

I ate about half of my pizza, without cheese, because I was very hungry.  And sad.  Then I was full and sadder.

Leaving the restaurant after having paid almost 30 euros for the honor, we found everything else closed.  So we went back to the hotel to get some sleep before a very busy day.

Sorry, Manfredonia!™.  I really wanted to like you, just on the strengths of your name (Manfredonia!™), but at least in January - you suck.

Plus, Husbear parked the car like this and I dreamt all night that the car was falling sideways into the abyss.

The end.

Tomorrow we hit the Gargano Peninsula and eat a local specialty - communion wafers stuffed with candied almonds.  They're called Stuffed Hosts.  No, really.

Lecce: The craziest Baroque we've ever seen, and some really good food.

So, Lecce.

This is another place where the best thing to do in town is wander.  They do have an archaeological museum, but most of the fun is in checking out the Leccese baroque, on display for free all over town.

First things first, though - we went in search of breakfast.  Unfortunately, the two places we had information on as good stops for pastries and coffees were closed - one, for a probably much-needed January vacation, and the other for good.  So, we went to a forno (oven - store selling breads) and bought a couple of tasty Leccese specialties - rustici and pasticiotti.

Rustici are kind of like panzerotti, delicious pastry pockets filled with tomato and mozzarella.  We tried two, one fried and one baked... the fried was tastier.  Isn't that pretty much always true, though?

Then, for afters, we tried out a local pastry called a pasticiotto (pasticiotti for the plural).  It's the ubiquitous pasta frolla (or short crust pastry, apparently) stuffed with pastry cream.  They looked a tad overdone, but were really good - though in my mind a cup of coffee would have been the perfect accompaniment.

Full and happy, we walked over to the Piazza del Duomo to see it in daylight.

After seeing Santa Croce the previous night, it was a bit of a letdown - ornate, but not insane.  Unfortunately, it was also closed.  This is one of the more difficult parameters of travel in southern Italy - the pausa, or Italian siesta, can be up to 4 hours in the middle of the day and shuts down just about everything of interest.  (Here in Florence, the pausa is rarely more than an hour.) In the summer, this is fine - you probably don't want to be outside in Lecce in July at 2 pm anyway.  In the winter, it's frusturating, since many things don't reopen until just after it gets dark outside.

Anyway, Lecce's piazza del duomo is well worth checking out, even if everything is closed - there's so much texture to be found there.

That is a view of the only entrance to the piazza - in times of war, sometimes the entire population of Lecce would seek refuge in this large piazza, kept safe by lack of access.

Since the pausa was now on in full force, and nothing would be reopening until at least 4, we took some time to do a little laundry and get our next few days of hotel stays planned. 

Several hours later, laundry done and travel arrangements made, we found ourselves once again standing in front of the craziest building I think I've ever seen - Lecce's Santa Croce.

This time, we got a couple of closeups.  The level of detail on this facade is completely amazing. How much time must it have taken to carve all of this?

Our favorites were the variety of creatures holding up the second level of the building.  There were knights, and gryphons, and strange manbearpigs, along with this she-wolf - perhaps suckling Romulus and Remus?

Our next stop was at the church of San Giovanni Battista - St. John the Baptist.  It was the last project of Lo Zimbalo, the architect responsible for the flamboyance of Leccese Baroque.

The enormous fruit-bowls topped by birds are certainly a highlight, but I was most taken with the columns on either side of the main entrance.  They were not only fluted on all sideways, but also carved with lots of intricate little whirls and flowers!  These things make Corinthian capitals look seriously boring.

We actually went inside this church, where we were confronted with altars that were more ornate than the froufrou outside!

Want a quick break from all this baroque?  Since Lecce is, well, in Italy... there was an awful lot of tagging. 

I've never thought of the Queen as needing to lose any weight, but apparently this kid disagrees.

We stopped at another small Baroque church on our way back to Piazza Sant'Oronzo (we were by now really ready for a snack, and were starting to fear that the McDonald's there might be the only thing open).  This scary cartapesta Jesus waited for us in the dim light inside.

I can't get over the obsession with the wounds - they're all so lovingly detailed.

There are some things about Catholicism, especially as it seems to be practiced over here, that I just can't wrap my head around.  Towns eat cookies shaped like eyeballs lost by martyrs, or in the form of breasts to remember saints... and there is this absolute obsession with the blood shed by Jesus.  It's very different.

Well, we were still hungry - and we were very relieved when we arrived back in Piazza Sant'Oronzo to find that the forno had reopened for evening business.  We bought a couple of stuffed breads.

We took part in the passeggiata for a little while, then returned to the hotel to change for dinner.  The little alimentari next to where we were staying had these hanging in the front, and I remembered an old Food Network show I had seen where Tyler Florence of all people visited a woman in Southern Italy who preserved August tomatoes for months by hanging them. 

I haven't actually seen tomatoes preserved in this manner anywhere else, so we went in to ask the grocer if that was indeed what they were - and they are.  I can't imagine why they don't rot - that sun must be hot and DRY.

We resolved to buy some the next day for our train picnic to Bari.

Dinner our second night in Lecce was planned for Trattoria Casereccia - we called and made reservations, even though the majority of the restaurants we'd eaten in on this trip had been all but empty.

It turned out to be a really good thing we reserved, since we arrived for our 9:30 reservation to find a restaurant with 10 tables - every one full.  We waited a little while for a table to finish its dinner and were seated.

The thing about this place - no menus.  A young woman wearing a clean white apron approached us soon after we were seated to ask about drinks, and she then rattled off the antipasti menu.  Melanzanefagiolifrittipastaalici...

We said... "Un misto, per favore?" - A mix, please? and a few moments later, these plates were deposited on our table.

Some very nice, lightly grilled eggplant, marinated anchovies, and a cold bean salad with celery.  Good, solid, but not particularly inspiring.  Then, the owner herself came out of the kitchen and put this down between us.

Nestled in amongst the perfectly fried slices of zucchini were little... I guess I will describe them as Italian hush-puppies.  They were bits of pizza dough with chunks of tomato, capers, and tiny (unpitted!) black olives.  I haven't had a fried thing that good in a long time.

The lady herself came back to list our options for primi, and she was very patient with us and spoke as slowly as we needed.  She somehow steered us towards ordering three primi for the two of us - I'm not entirely sure how it happened, but I didn't complain...

The first to come out was what she described as a "sformato" - made with sliced squash and potatoes, and a few mussels.  It had a strong home-cooked feel to it, perhaps due to the pooling olive oil, or the fact that just a couple of mussels flavored the whole dish.  It seemed like something a housewife would make with what was around.  It was delicious, too - lots of crispy potato bits and soft squash.

Next came our two pasta dishes.  We had to try her ciceri e tria, to stack it up against the previous night's.  It was really good, with a different texture caused by the wider noodles, but I think we have to give the flavor edge ever-so-slightly to Alle due Corte.  Not that this wasn't delicious.

The next dish was made with a pasta shape we had been seeing all over town, called sagne.  They look like a wide noodle, somewhere between tagliatelle and pappardelle, that then seems to be loosely fomed around a long tube.  It makes a shape sort of like the curls I've always imagined that insufferable girl in Ramona the Pest having - you just want to tug them so you can watch them spring back into shape.

Surprisingly, they keep that spring-shape when cooked.  Here, they were served with a tomato sauce flavored with ricotta forte, and some really nice moist meatballs that were probably mostly bread.

We barely managed to finish our plates, and when we were asked if we'd care for secondi, I managed to ask weakly for some raw fennel (I had seen people at another table enjoying it, and it looked delicious).  Husbear, however, had other ideas, and ordered a plate of one of the meats Puglia is famous for - horse. 

I know, but... when in Rome?

My fennel was so good.  I could smell it coming to me from across the restaurant, it seemed.  They grow a lot of the stuff in Puglia; there are fields of it everywhere, and I was really shocked at the difference in flavor and smell.  It was so strong it almost made my tongue numb.  I loved it.

The horse... well, Pugliese eat a lot of horse.  We saw it on just about every menu in Lecce, and we resolved to try it - and this seemed like a good place to do so.

We were right.  It was actually wonderful - most likely roasted then braised in a slightly spicy, rich tomato sauce.  Really, really good. 

After all of this food, we knew there was no way we'd be venturing anywhere near dessert - so we stuck to our usual question about local digestivi.  This time, the question produced a flood of about six liqueurs made in house, so we ordered laurel (alloro) and nespolino, which turns out to be made from the nut of the medlar tree.

I preferred the laurel, which has a really nice herby interesting flavor.  The nespolino wasn't bad, it was just sort of insipid. Kind of like a mild sweet almond flavor

All in all, though, this was one of the best meals we had on our trip, and I would highly recommend them.  Even though the outside looks a little... suspect.  But definitely reserve, because if they were like this on an off-season Wendesday, I can't imagine what it's like during tourist season.

Trattoria Casareccia: Viale Archimede Contadura 19, Lecce.  0832.24.51.78

Matera to Lecce - with mouths gaping at the return of baroque.

At some point, we had to declare ourselves done with Matera (for now) and move on, which was unfortunate since we hadn't really had a chance to explore any of Basilicata beyond Matera itself.  (Ruing the sickness, yes.)  Matera is apparently the only Italian regional capital not served by mainline FS Italian trains, which makes it a bit difficult to get anywhere.

Our next stop was to be Lecce, down a little ways into the Salentine peninsula (that's the heel).  This meant bus to Metaponto, train to Táranto, train to Brindisi, train to Lecce. About five hours of travel - not too bad.  We brought some seriously delicious stuffed breads from a panificio run by the Fratelli di Palo (the di Palo brothers) in Matera.

Very hearty, these breads. 

We got into Lecce just before dark and checked in to our hotel - luckily, it was mere steps from the train station, meaning we didn't have to carry our increasingly heavy bags very far.  (those kilos of salt and flour and bottles of wine and after-dinner liqueurs were adding up fast.)  Then we stepped out to find us some Leccese baroque!

No, we hadn't seen enough baroque on this trip.  Plus, Lecce has a style of baroque all its own - Leccese stone is uniquely suited to crazy carving, since it's soft right after being quarried and hardens later. 

Our first stop, after paying way too much for a small jar of local ricotta forte (strong, aged ricotta... and it is STRONG) was at the Duomo.

A pretty building, though not insanely over-the-top like we were expecting.  Certainly more flowery than the baroque we'd seen in southeastern Sicily, though.

We went inside, but it was much too dim to see anything clearly, so we backed out for more wandering through the streets.

Lecce is where papier-mache was invented (at least according to the Leccese - and they call it cartapesta, thank you) so there are a lot of little terrific cartapesta shops.

They all have examples of their work outside, which ranged from full showpieces like this elephant to rows of small children's whistles.  Much of the art was religious, with giant Jesuses on the cross (skinned knees and wounds lovingly painted).

We were particularly enamored of this farmer/shepherd.

Our next stop was at Santa Croce, which is probably the best example of Leccese Baroque we saw.  It's amazing - it's either the product of a mind fogged by fever or indescribably brilliant.  I haven't decided what I think, but it did put an unshakeable grin on my face for fifteen or twenty minutes.

(Don't worry - we have some great detail shots of the dragons and wolves and men struggling under the weight of the columns.  They're even in daylight!)

Our next stop on our passeggiata was Lecce's central piazza, the Piazza Sant'Oronzo.  In the middle of the piazza sits one of the two columns that used to mark the end of the Appian Way in Brindisi, until it was gifted to Lecce after a plague.

Wandering, as always, makes us hungry (and the fact that it was approaching 9 o'clock didn't hurt either) so we went over to a restaurant called Alle Due Corte for a real Leccese dinner.

Husbear, especially, was excited to try Pugliese food - their cuisine focuses more on vegetables than elsewhere in Italy, and they've long been the breadbasket of the country.

We started out, of course, with the house antipasti - an array of vegetables, grilled, sauteed, marinated, formed into cakes with egg...

Very good.  I especially liked the sweet peppers, which were sauteed with bread crumbs in a type of agrodolce.

We ordered two primi off the menu, which was entirely in dialect with English translations.  We found this odd - why not Pugliese dialect with Italian translations?

One was called "Lu Ranu te lu Tiaulu" - a spicy tomato-based stew with wheat seeds, olives, capers, peppers, artichokes, and mushrooms.  It was probably the spiciest thing we've been served in Italy - no joke!  And it was so good - really warming!

Our other primo was Ciceri e Tria, a specialty limited to the Salentine Peninsula.  It's made with long thin pasta shapes, some of which are fried and some boiled, that are served with a rich chickpea sauce.  It's just really simple ingredients put together in a delicious way.  (This may have been Husbear's favorite dish of the whole trip.)

When the waiter came back to see if we wanted secondi, we debated with each other for a while, and ended up settling on the turcinieddhi - goat sausages.  With perhaps a larger compliment of "innards" than we're used to in American sausages.  They were very good, though quite livery - but much better than I would have guessed from the menu description: "Baby goat entrails (heart, liver, lung) rolled together and roasted."

Completely full, we turned down dessert in favor of some digestivi.  I was disappointed when the answer to my by-now routine question "Avete digestivi locali?" (Do you have local after-dinner drinks?) was met with "Solo limoncello" - but the limoncello was good, definitely better than the other thing we ordered, a sweet dessert wine.

Stuffed from dinner, we left for a brief amble back through the streets of the old town and back to our hotel.  On the way, we turned a corner onto a small street and were suddenly presented with this:

A Roman ampitheater, uncovered during construction in the past 100 years.  It's so easy to get blasé about being in a country where several millenia of history are just piled up on top of themselves, but every once in a while something just stops you.

Tomorrow, more exploration of Lecce - lots of baroque and delicious Leccese food!

Matera. Amazing place sickens Girlie.

By the time our kind host in Scigliano, Raffaele, dropped us off so we could catch our train out of Cosenza, I was unfortunately feeling well and truly wretched. The cold that Husbear had been dealing with for several days hit me full force and knocked me just about over.

What really pissed me off about this was that this happened just as we were going to the place I’d been most excited to see on this trip – Matera. The town’s history goes back 7,000 years (yeah, 7,000), which is when people first started carving homes out of the soft tufa rock. They’re now known as sassi.

People lived in the sassi continuously until 1952, when the government, spurred at least in part by Carlo Levi’s book Christ Stopped at Eboli, kicked everyone out and put them into government housing. Levi’s book detailed the horrible living conditions in the sassi; an infant mortality rate of over 50% was perhaps caused in part by up to 12 people living in one cave along with their farm animals. Now, however, people have started moving back in and renovating the sassi, turning many of them into luxury hotels and b&b’s.

Matera has grown in fame and popularity over the last few years as well, since Mel Gibson chose it for the location for “The Passion of the Christ.”

The first couple of days, we splurged and rented our very own sasso through a friend of Raffaele’s (B&B del Casale.) The part set into the actual hill dated to around 1000, though the front part was considerably newer – perhaps around 1500.

It was a beautiful place, though after two nights we had to move to one of the town’s terrific hostels, Le Monacelle… considerably more wallet-friendly. (Plus, we ended up having our own room there, too – with 16 beds this time!)

We ate a lot of beans and pasta, apparently a specialty of Basilicata – seriously hefty food.

From La Talpa, Sasso Barisano - cavatelli with chickpea puree, porcini mushrooms, arugula, and tomatoes.

From Il Cantuccio, near the Duomo - strascinate with black bean puree.

Since we had our own kitchenette, we went to the market one day and picked up a head of bizarre chicory we’d never seen before (delicious, but odd)

and made it into a salad we ate with a couple of really surprisingly good takeout pizzas.

We also looked at the cultural and historic sights of Matera – don’t you worry. We visited a sasso that’s been turned into a museum, decorated with the help of the family that lived there until the 1950s.

Children slept in drawers and the hen lived and laid eggs under the bed. And there was a stall for a horse.

We visited the chiese ripiestri, or rock churches – small churches carved out of the rock, some dating from the 6th century CE. Some have bits of Byzantine frescoes from the 11th through 14th centuries, though out of the five we visited, none of them had more than a little bit of paint remaining.

The museum of modern and medieval Basilicatan art was also mildly diverting, though we were sort of surprised to find ourselves inside of it since we had thought we were buying tickets for the Carlo Levi Center. This was not what we were expecting.

Apparently the two are connected, since we did eventually find ourselves in a room with Carlo Levi’s paintings. It was interesting to see the people he’d talked about in his book through his painting, and to find out that not only was he a pretty good writer, he was a pretty good painter as well.

But mostly, being in Matera was all about looking at the sassi. They sit on top of each other, each row forming a road for the row above. Many of them are still uninhabited, abandoned, which enforces the feeling of desolation and hopelessness still present in much of the area. There’s such a strange beauty about the place, though.

I think it was our Lonely Planet that said that Matera’s history of outrageous misery has made it into the tourist destination it is today, and there is oddly a lot of truth to that statement. An infant mortality rate of over 50 percent just over 50 years ago, in a country considered to be a part of the developed world, is pretty much impossible to conceive.

All of this made me feel even stupider and angrier for having to spend much of the time we were there like this.

Scigliano, and learning more about Calabria

When you’re in a tiny town with no car, what do you do? If you’re us, you sleep in, then you pack a bit of a picnic to explore the surroundings.

We left our adorable and comfortable room with our bag of food and headed towards a church Rafaelle had mentioned to us, the Madonna della Timpe. We weren’t really sure where we were going, so after heading a good bit out of town we figured we had gone the wrong way and turned around.

The town was lovely to walk through, though.

By this time we were getting really hungry, so we stopped in the first likely picnic-looking spot we could find – a small raised paved lot with benches around the outside. It looks pretty desolate in the pictures, but I promise it was fairly inviting. Lunch was the same as dinner the previous day – ‘nduja (spicy pork fat sausage), rosamarina (spicy fish spread), apples, hard bread, wine, pickles… and really gross olives.

When we were just about done eating, a couple of extremely skittish cats came nosing around the edge of the lot. So, we tossed them some cheese rinds. We’ve fed bread to pigeons (though not often – rats that they are), but never cheese to cats. This occupied us for a little while… we miss our kitties!

Feeling more fed, we decided to set out to find that church again – though this time we asked a man who couldn’t have been more than 5 feet tall for further directions. “Sempre diritto!” he said, making large gestures involving lots of use of elbows. We gathered we had chickened out too early the first time and took the one road out of town again.

Perhaps 500 meters past where we had given up the first time, we found this small wooden sign. If we hadn’t been on foot and looking for the sign, we never would have found it!

Had we been driving, we certainly would have been distracted by the beauty of the area…

We took the turnoff onto what rapidly became a dirt road, and walked for fifteen or twenty minutes through scenery that was really reminiscent of the Appalachians.

We couldn’t hear any traffic noise, just the stream tumbling by below and our feet kicking through the leaves.

I don’t know if the goat head with hair still attached made it more or less like West Virginia.

After walking a little further, we turned a corner to find an area where the rock wall of the path had been hollowed to form a wider flat area, which was occupied almost completely by a small church.

The small building nestled into its surroundings, perfectly fitted into the hollowed area. A small path, which we followed, led behind it towards where the stream was cascading down a man-made waterfall.

The area was so peaceful, and so different from where we’ve been the last few months. We desperately wanted to stay, but the sun was on its way down and I didn’t want to get stuck at the end of a dirt path in the middle of nowhere. (That’s the city girl in me talking.)

On the way back, Husbear took a brief detour to more closely inspect a small shack connected to the path by plank footbridge. It looked to me like the perfect home for a crazed ax murderer, so I hung back.

Back around the church and along the footpath… we of course made it back to the main road with plenty of time before dark.

We had seen some fun graffiti in Scigliano that we wanted to photo, so Husbear tested the long exposures on his camera (by now, it was full dark). I think the 10-second exposure on here worked pretty well. Though I’m still not sure if they’re wanting to say “No Thanks” or “No Tanks”, I suppose both sentiments are appropriate.

Later on, back at the B&B, I was trying to dry some underwear I had stupidly tried to wash out in the sink (when it had only 12 hours to dry) when there was a knock on the door.

It was Rafaelle, our host, inviting us to dinner! He knew we didn’t have a car, and thus very kindly invited us to eat with him.

We went to his house (right upstairs) with a bottle of wine about an hour later, and he accepted the gift even though he told us we were absolutely crazy for bringing white wine to have with pasta with red sauce. (I don’t know the rules yet!)

We had a lovely dinner of spaghetti with a very light tomato sauce and cauliflower in balsamic vinegar. More importantly, though, we talked for a long time with Rafaelle. He’s an architect who is passionate about his native Calabria, and he seemed genuinely sad that our trip through this region would have to be so short. He pulled out his archive of magazines and showed us pictures of Calabria’s beautiful towns – Scilla, Rocca Imperiale, Tropea.

Calabria isn’t touristy, and Rafaelle told us that a lot of this has to do with the Calabrians themselves. “You go to Naples, and there are billboards everywhere for their buffalo mozzarella – here in Calabria, we have the wonderful provola cheese from the Sila forests, and nobody outside of here knows about it!” He put a piece of cheese behind a napkin to illustrate. “We make a sign in very very small type and put it behind a tree, like this!” He went on to talk about Calabrian oranges, giving each of us one to prove their succulence, and Zagara amaro (digestive liqueur) which won gold prizes in international competition in 1979 and has been difficult to find ever since, even in Calabria.

A most edifying evening – great conversation and a wonderful time. We went to bed much too late – tomorrow Rafaelle takes us to the train station near Cosenza, and then on to Matera, where Mel Gibson filmed Passion of the Christ. This should be a very interesting town…