Corfu, the quiet bit

In the absence of friends who were able to travel, I put on my big girls pants and booked myself onto a yoga retreat for a week in Corfu, Greece's most Western island. Before the retreat was scheduled to begin, a few days of nothing seemed appropriate. So I booked myself into a hotel in the town of Gouvia, one I wouldn't recommend if you like nice beaches or a town with much going on. It turns out Corfu is bigger than I gave it credit for and both my yoga retreat and the 'crazy' beaches that make the island well known, were miles and miles away. To Gouvia's credit, I was still able to find a good Greek salad:

This aside, the hotel had two big draws: a stunning pool, which I spent two days beside, and a close proximity to the ferry to Albania.

My trip happened to coincide with the Great European Heatwave of 2017, something I think global warming will give us a lot more of in the future. 

 So the Albanian day trip was hot and sweaty and the pool time was cool and refreshing. Not much else to report on for the first part of the trip, really.

Maldive di Salento and Other Gems

Our final crazy trip to the beautiful beaches of Puglia took us to the aptly named, Maldive di Salento: translation--the Maldives of Salento. That's a big name to live up to. Never having been to the Maldives, I can't say for certain that it does indeed live up to that name. But for what it's worth, the beach WAS stunning. Lots of squeaky white sand, clean, clear water and fantastic people watching. 

In what seems to be typical Italian beach style, the sand was dotted by vendors who'd already staked out the sand with umbrellas. We paid the going rate, 25 euros, for the day and set up shop on a particularly lovely stretch of sand. There were locals who'd driven, bringing their own gear, which is also an option. 

Should you want to replicate this trip, take the SitaBus, line 108 to Santa Maria di Leuca (the beach's less glamourous name). You can also take really posey pictures in the glamorous cafe up the beach just like this:

 Bikini Beach Club

With our final moments of the trip resting our heads in Gallipoli, we spent days on the beach and evenings in the city centre. Our hotel in Gallipoli Old Town cut a deal with Bikini Beach Club, one of the local beach clubs just outside the city. I'm sure we could have got a taxi or bus to these local beaches but our local travels finally got the best of us so we opted for easy. This particular beach club, entry 25 euros for an umbrella and two chairs, came with a free shuttle and the Italian man who drove it. It turns out that Paul's Italian is slightly better than conversational; he got our driver's life story--from his brothers' professions (one's an engineer, one's pit crew for Ferrari) to his views on immigration (slightly less PC). 

The weather made a brief turn for the worse and so everyone retreated to the open air restaurant to watch the storm roll in. We watched games of poker, briscola, dominoes unfold whilst the clouds rolled, lazed and dropped a brief shower.

And then almost, as if by magic, the clouds rolled back out and the sun returned.

We stayed for one final sunset, toasting final Aperol Spritzes to la dolce vita before heading back with our bus driver extraordinaire.

Gallipoli

Our final stop on the great Pugliese adventure took us to the city of Gallipoli, not to be mistaken for the more famous one in Turkey. Its location on the Ionian Sea, on the opposing coast to the rest of our adventures, meant that sea breezes and sunsets were particularly pronounced. We had high expectations for our final ancient town and although it did have suitable charm, including a city beach, harbour and old, old town, we weren't as charmed as the rest of the trip. The city felt full of tourists; the old town was the centrepoint for the trip's most expensive restaurants (that weren't as good as some of the cheaper ones we'd been to) and noise was hard to avoid. Call us spoiled.

All this aside, there was a lot of beauty to be had. Considering its location, Gallipoli has ancient Greek roots and was subsequently conquered by the Goths, Romans, Normans and Sicilians. Because of this, it found itself at the centre of trade and commerce for many, many years. On the ground, this looks like a distinct old and new town, complete with fortified walls and an LED Jesus, respectively. 

Out with the old and in with the new:

Our hotel, complete with picture of the Virgin Mary with baby Jesus above our bed, didn't quite live up to the TripAdvisor recommendations. Perhaps it was the old man sitting in his pants on the balcony across from our window, perhaps it was the raucous sound reverberations of the rickshaws playing their music into the wee hours. Regardless, we did find some stunning scenery. 

Like the harbour: 

Next to the beach:

All a four-minute walk from our resting place. And wandering down the old town streets yielded lots of colours, narrow streets, cobbled lanes and romantic balconies:

And there were some places for cheap, delicious gelato, granitas and Aperol spritz, all together, all at the same time, should this be your desire:

Padre Pio, Apulia's Saint of the People, loomed large throughout the city:

And so we spent days on the beach, both in-city and out, before continuing on with the grand tradition of grand sunsets and passeggiatas:

 

Our trip didn't quite end there. We still had to fight teenage masses to catch a bus back to Lecce to catch a train back to Bari to then spend a night in Bari before catching a late night flight back to London. Because we try not to do things by halves.

The Food of Puglia

There are cookbooks devoted to the subject of Pugliese cooking so there is no way that I can do this subject justice. But I'm good at smelling frying garlic, feasting with my eyes, sitting down to a proper meal and giving a conglomeration of tastes a go. If Italian cooking is known for anything, it's got to be for the power of creating masterpieces from simple, fresh ingredients: tomatoes, basil, semolina, olive oil. Food rules in Italy which is one of the reasons I love the country so much.

In Bari, the nonnas rule the roost. Winding through the old town, old ladies sat in the morning sunlight rolling sheets of fresh pasta and turning them into orecchiette, ear shaped pasta ubiquitous in the region. Ears lay drying on racks everywhere ready to be bagged and bought:

Il Poeta Contadino, an 'agriturismo' restaurant in Lecce that served all fresh produce, dressed up the ears in a delicious pesto and tomato sauce. 

Perhaps more classically Italian was this fresh bruschetta, topped with mushrooms, buffalo mozzarella and tomatoes:

Bari was also home to panificio fiore, a local type of focaccia baked with sundried tomatoes and drizzled with olive oil. It was a lunchtime favourite of the locals but we found some lingering in bread shop one late evening. It looks like pizza but tastes better, if that's possible:

The more obvious choices abounded as well: pizza, gelato, coffee, cured meat. They were made no less good because of their obviousness; but we tried to mix up our carbs and desserts from day-to-day. Some standouts included: coffee and pastries in Polignano a Mare:

Gnocchi with fish in a tomato sauce at La Locanda Porta Picc in Polignano:

 

 And always gelato:

 In Lecce, we encountered some food giants. At Doppiozero (00), an unassuming shop-front adjacent to one of the many ancient city squares, I ordered a Caprese Salad and got this:

 Paul ordered a club sandwich and got this:

We stumbled out two hours later, significantly heavier in the stomach and only marginally thinner in the wallet.

Eventually recovering, like two days later, we made our way to a hole-in-the-wall pizza place that seemed to be always crammed to the rafters with pizza lovers. Il Pizzicotto works in a walk-up, point to the slices you want, wait whilst they get shoved for a quick fire in the pizza oven, pay and find a seat on the street outside. This pizza may have changed my life:

There would be other pizzas, like this one in Bari that was also delectable. But still:

And perhaps my greatest find this Italian trip was the humble granita. Essentially, they're fruit slushies with lots of grainy crushed ice. Incredibly refreshing. To be honest, I'm not sure how i've visited Italy this many times without having one before. I had no less than one per day:

 Like I said, I'm not sure how I didn't gain 300 lbs on this trip.

Beaches up the Coast

With our Salento Bus success, the next day we decided to take a different route and hopped on the 101 from Lecce to famous Torre dell'Orso beach. The perfect storm of August, the month that most Italians take off and make their pilgrimage to the country's beaches, and Saturday, the weekend's prime, made the beach unbearably busy. We stared down from the cliff below before diving into the crowds. Five minutes later, we gave up and meandered back towards the direction that the bus dropped us off at. From afar, it WAS beautiful.

As we wandered along the coast, we could see people swimming in the clear blue sea. A few conversations with strangers in broken Italian later, we found a little stairway carved into the rocks that led down to a local watering hole in the town of Melendugno. The added benefit--it was significantly quieter than its neighbour up the coast.

The water was blue, blue again. And freezing cold, the kind of cold that momentarily takes your breath away. So we dropped towels on the rocks, made friends with the other locals there and lizarded out for a couple of hours.

We eventually continued on to lunch before walking up the coastal road, past some stunning stone wall, through to the town of Roca and over to the Grotta della Poesia, another local attraction that invites day trippers by the many.

People get their kicks here by jumping off the cliffs, either into the 15 feet/4 meter deep sinkhole below or into the sea itself. Legend has it that this was the favourite swimming spot of an ancient princess and poets were inspired to write about this.

Further up the coast and heading up towards San Foca, the area's biggest town, continued to yield stunning views. Years of erosion carved caves into the cliffs and people delighted in finding their own private swimming spots.

Even further up the coast, the beauty continued. We eventually found a beach connected to a bar and cafe. There was actual beach here, not just rocks, but it wasn't the most beautiful beach, or scenery, there. If you're heading this way, you won't find golden sand beaches. But that doesn't make it any less beautiful or worth visiting.

We eventually caught back up with the bus outside of the shops between Roca and San Foca. Thankfully, the masses got on the bus a bit later on and we got to ride back to Lecce into the setting sun, which seemed entirely appropriate for the, yet again, beautiful day.