Galatina’s Basilica di Santa Caterina has the most vivid frescoes I’ve ever seen, and for this fact alone I can’t understand why the town doesn’t draw more people. I went back twice to see them all. Galatina is a pleasant little town in its own right, but perhaps there just isn’t enough to keep tourists occupied. It is certainly quiet. So quiet, in fact, that between the hours of 12.30pm and 4.30pm it is actually closed.
I wandered within the small boundary of the old town for hours and found no one but a few stragglers. I was completely puzzled. I asked the guy at the hotel about it and he told me this is the region’s four-to-five-hour-long siesta. “It’s too hot to stay open,” he said. I think it was about 28°C.
These hours are when I’m at my most mobile, exploring places I am passing through, but all the small towns of Salento close. Even the restaurants! I don’t know how people eat. Apparently they sleep. And when, starving, I find a place miraculously open at 3pm, they say lunch is over and they’re no longer serving food.
That night in Galatina I ate at one of the best restaurants on the entire trip – not because of the standard of the food, but because of the experience. I saw the sign for La Tana del Lupo in an alley near my hotel earlier in the day. When dinner time came, then, I walked straight in through the door and almost turned over tables, plates and guests. There were exactly four tables, one free, in a living room. There was a kitchen two paces away, I think there was a broom closet with a toilet in it, and that was it. There wasn’t even room for a menu. I sat down and the waiter (who is the cook’s husband) brought me bottled water and a stoppered bottle of rosé and asked me if I was very hungry or just a little. That’s the choice: apart from this, you get what you’re given. Which is wonderful southern Italian home cooking.
The living room had a vaulted ceiling, and the walls were filled with family photos, bottles of wine, pewter jugs, dried chilis, paintings, and shelves of curios and ornaments. Two families somehow fit at two of the other tables, and there was a solo bloke behind me in the corner. The animated husband moved between the tables and spoke to the diners, regaling everyone with funny stories (I assume, since everyone was laughing). He spoke a little broken English with me and I a little broken Italian with him, and then plates came: cold antipasto (pickled onions, zucchini and eggplant in olive oil, soft cheese), then hot antipasto (fritters of vegetables and a bacon-flavoured egg frittata), then handmade pasta shells in broccoli sauce (scuisito!), then veal meatballs in tomato sauce, and beef in jus. Dessert is watermelon, and then for aperitif I’m offered coffee or limoncello. I ask for the limoncello and am given a half-full corked glass bottle from the freezer of the bright yellow liquid, thick and alcoholic, and a shot glass. It would be all but impossible, especially after a litre of wine, but I could have sat and finished it if I wanted to. And all this for a flat €25. AND as I walked out the husband gave me a bottle of wine!
Showing posts with label Puglia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Puglia. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
Monday, August 01, 2011
The Gallipoli landing
I went back to my car and discovered another parking ticket. This, while other cars are parked over kerbs, on footpaths, across railroad tracks, and in shopfront windows. I don't own a car for reasons such as this. The train or the bus is mindless and stress-free. I’m going to make these tickets go away by ignoring them.
An old man past the age of retirement, who wrought what meaning he could from the remainder of his life by monitoring other people's parking, sat on a stoop in front of my ticketed car, waiting for me. He told me in Italian that there’s no parking here. “Si,” I drew out, mildly exasperated at the obviousness of the fact. The parking is in the port, he said. “Yes, I know, I know,” I said in English. You have to move your car, he said. “Look,” I said to non-understanding ears. “I’ve been ticketed. What do you want? For the carabinieri to take me out and shoot me?” You’ll get two tickets, he said. I looked at him. “Lei è polizia, si? No! So don’t bother me!” I wasn’t at all in the mood. Old prick.
Parking in Gallipoli is horrendous. Parking in shop windows and up chimneys requires a resident’s pass, and though copious free parking is provided at the port outside the island of the old city, inserting an entire car into a spot there is performing delicate keyhole surgery with a battering ram. Further out there are more car parks. These are also packed. You can find more full ones if you look, and if you keep going you can park in Lecce 20km away and walk back.
An old man past the age of retirement, who wrought what meaning he could from the remainder of his life by monitoring other people's parking, sat on a stoop in front of my ticketed car, waiting for me. He told me in Italian that there’s no parking here. “Si,” I drew out, mildly exasperated at the obviousness of the fact. The parking is in the port, he said. “Yes, I know, I know,” I said in English. You have to move your car, he said. “Look,” I said to non-understanding ears. “I’ve been ticketed. What do you want? For the carabinieri to take me out and shoot me?” You’ll get two tickets, he said. I looked at him. “Lei è polizia, si? No! So don’t bother me!” I wasn’t at all in the mood. Old prick.
Parking in Gallipoli is horrendous. Parking in shop windows and up chimneys requires a resident’s pass, and though copious free parking is provided at the port outside the island of the old city, inserting an entire car into a spot there is performing delicate keyhole surgery with a battering ram. Further out there are more car parks. These are also packed. You can find more full ones if you look, and if you keep going you can park in Lecce 20km away and walk back.
Gallipoli, Italy
Italy has a Gallipoli as well, on the west coast of Puglia, and just as many Italians flock there in high season as Aussies do its Turkish namesake on Anzac Day. Arriving here in summer with no reservation is foolhardy, but I’ve done that everywhere for this entire trip and I’ve always been able to find something.
The bloke at the tourist information centre (who speaks no English) says it could be a problem when I tell him I'm looking for a room. He rings around and after about five minutes a stout bloke with a waddle (who speaks no English) arrives. He leads me through the winding streets to a mini-market selling vegetables and paper towels and cans of tomatoes. I’m sleeping among the produce? He passes me off to his wife who emerges from behind the cash register (and who speaks no English). She's a friendly lady but she rattles off long Italian sentences and looks at me expectantly, despite my having just answered her previous long Italian sentence with “no capisco, no parlo Italiano”. She plucks from the shelf a bottle of water and a package of sheets (they sell sheets?) and, smiling, leads me out again through the winding streets.
Eventually I'm taken to a clean and decent room with its own entrance up a flight of steps. She makes the bed with the new sheets and gives me the bottle of water, all the time persisting with her rambling Italian. I recognise a word or two—“Street! Door! Key! Yes!”—and then we look at each other and say, “err….” This goes on until I am exhausted.
“Thank you, shut up and goodbye!” I say and throw her down the stairs.
The bloke at the tourist information centre (who speaks no English) says it could be a problem when I tell him I'm looking for a room. He rings around and after about five minutes a stout bloke with a waddle (who speaks no English) arrives. He leads me through the winding streets to a mini-market selling vegetables and paper towels and cans of tomatoes. I’m sleeping among the produce? He passes me off to his wife who emerges from behind the cash register (and who speaks no English). She's a friendly lady but she rattles off long Italian sentences and looks at me expectantly, despite my having just answered her previous long Italian sentence with “no capisco, no parlo Italiano”. She plucks from the shelf a bottle of water and a package of sheets (they sell sheets?) and, smiling, leads me out again through the winding streets.
Eventually I'm taken to a clean and decent room with its own entrance up a flight of steps. She makes the bed with the new sheets and gives me the bottle of water, all the time persisting with her rambling Italian. I recognise a word or two—“Street! Door! Key! Yes!”—and then we look at each other and say, “err….” This goes on until I am exhausted.
“Thank you, shut up and goodbye!” I say and throw her down the stairs.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Litoranea and Specchia
The Litoranea, a narrow and winding clifftop road on the coast bounded by stone walls that run for miles, took me down from Otranto through Porto Badisco, Castro, and on to San Maria de Leuca. The sea was steely and the sky was grey, and much of the way it rained heavily as I slalomed through roadside sprays of pink and white oleander and lush green trees, listening to Bronx River Parkway and Chris Joss. Cool.
In Leuca I tried to find a B&B recommended in my Lonely Planet, but was told by the waitress of the cafe which now occupies the building that it closed last year. However, she happened to run a B&B herself five kilometres out of town in Morciano, to which she gave me directions. Well, it was fifteen kilometres, not five, and the breeze-block town was depressing as hell, so I kept going until I hit a little town called Specchia. In the last hour of light I saw a sign for B&B Vento Solare. I rang the number and spent all my Italian enquiring if a room was available. After I concluded that it was, the conversation descended into: “Pronto.” “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” “Che? No capisco.” “Um… parla inglese?” “Dov’è lei?” Well, I found my way and found myself talking to the proprietress’ mother, who spoke no English, while I waited for the proprietress’ son to arrive, who did. She was very pleasant, but the conversation was stilted and agonisingly slow as I fumbled through my phrasebook, telling her that I’m here on holiday, that Salento is pretty, that her garden is pretty, that I am hungry. There’s nothing like necessity for learning quickly.
The next day I got a bloody €39 parking ticket in San Cesárea Terme. The municipal police in Salento prowl for tourists in the high season. I parked briefly in a lot clearly marked for parking but not for the need to purchase a ticket from the one hidden ticket machine. I was there for all of ten minutes while I was declined access to my money by a cash machine up the road.
In Leuca I tried to find a B&B recommended in my Lonely Planet, but was told by the waitress of the cafe which now occupies the building that it closed last year. However, she happened to run a B&B herself five kilometres out of town in Morciano, to which she gave me directions. Well, it was fifteen kilometres, not five, and the breeze-block town was depressing as hell, so I kept going until I hit a little town called Specchia. In the last hour of light I saw a sign for B&B Vento Solare. I rang the number and spent all my Italian enquiring if a room was available. After I concluded that it was, the conversation descended into: “Pronto.” “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” “Che? No capisco.” “Um… parla inglese?” “Dov’è lei?” Well, I found my way and found myself talking to the proprietress’ mother, who spoke no English, while I waited for the proprietress’ son to arrive, who did. She was very pleasant, but the conversation was stilted and agonisingly slow as I fumbled through my phrasebook, telling her that I’m here on holiday, that Salento is pretty, that her garden is pretty, that I am hungry. There’s nothing like necessity for learning quickly.
The next day I got a bloody €39 parking ticket in San Cesárea Terme. The municipal police in Salento prowl for tourists in the high season. I parked briefly in a lot clearly marked for parking but not for the need to purchase a ticket from the one hidden ticket machine. I was there for all of ten minutes while I was declined access to my money by a cash machine up the road.
Baia dei Turchi
Just north of Otranto is the Baia dei Turchi, the Turkish Bay, with beautiful beaches concealed from the road. Sheltered from the hot sun, I entered a pleasant grove of sparse and tall pines and immediately came across a bloke in a makeshift roofless bamboo hut selling drinks and sandwiches. Next to him was another bloke in a hammock strung between two trees. After a few minutes walking the grove grows suddenly dense. I walked a worn dirt track through a tight green tunnel and emerged at a low cliff. Below me spread the long and narrow beaches, some with rows of fixed umbrellas made of dried palm fronds and others with scattered umbrellas of random colours, against turquoise water.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Otranto, Italy
A night ferry took me from the west coast of Greece to the heel of Italy, a country where at last I could at least fumble my way through the language. I had a a four-bed shared cabin booked (in fact, I had two; the previous one sailed while I was in Santorini), but I was the only one in it. High season in Europe is funny. It’s busy everywhere, except for little undiscovered pockets.
An eight-hour journey and a six-hour sleep got me to Brindisi at 7am, where I picked up a rental car and headed south. My first night was nearly spent in the car in Otranto, a popular destination on Puglia’s eastern coast, where six hotels turned me away. It was a Saturday and I didn’t have a reservation. I finally found a decent place with a room, the friendly Hotel Minerva, on a side street for €75. I showered and changed out of shorts and into jeans and wandered into the old town for dinner.
I was heading to a simple pizzeria by the Porta Terra which was recommended in my guidebook, but was arrested at the Piazza del Popolo by two guitarists, a female singer and some cool bossa nova. All passers-by were stopping to listen, lingering and applauding, and when a prime table was vacated just as I arrived I took it as a cue that this was where I should eat tonight. They were so good. I could have closed my eyes when they did The Girl From Ipanema and believed I was watching Antonio Carlos Jobim and João and Astrud Gilberto. The lead guitarist was a lefty, and not only did he play a right-handed guitar upside-down à la Jimi Hendrix, but it was strung upside-down as well, standard for a right-handed player, which means he deliberately learned all his chords and scales inverted! Very strange. And he was really good.
Otranto’s Spanish-built and sympathetically restored castle is today used as a gallery, where the next day I enjoyed a Salvador Dalí exhibit. I’m usually ambivalent about Dalí and the surrealist movement of the 1930s, but this was sculpture, etchings and sketches from later in his life.
An eight-hour journey and a six-hour sleep got me to Brindisi at 7am, where I picked up a rental car and headed south. My first night was nearly spent in the car in Otranto, a popular destination on Puglia’s eastern coast, where six hotels turned me away. It was a Saturday and I didn’t have a reservation. I finally found a decent place with a room, the friendly Hotel Minerva, on a side street for €75. I showered and changed out of shorts and into jeans and wandered into the old town for dinner.
I was heading to a simple pizzeria by the Porta Terra which was recommended in my guidebook, but was arrested at the Piazza del Popolo by two guitarists, a female singer and some cool bossa nova. All passers-by were stopping to listen, lingering and applauding, and when a prime table was vacated just as I arrived I took it as a cue that this was where I should eat tonight. They were so good. I could have closed my eyes when they did The Girl From Ipanema and believed I was watching Antonio Carlos Jobim and João and Astrud Gilberto. The lead guitarist was a lefty, and not only did he play a right-handed guitar upside-down à la Jimi Hendrix, but it was strung upside-down as well, standard for a right-handed player, which means he deliberately learned all his chords and scales inverted! Very strange. And he was really good.
Thursday, June 09, 2011
Quanti giorni manca?
II have been inspired to go to Italy. It wasn't on my original itinerary, but from northern Greece to Puglia it's quite close. Anyway, my itinerary was so focussed on Eastern Europe that I was needing some Romance. Italy will do nicely. I've deliberately left my plans open, so maybe I'll drop Romania (which was in question anyway for time) and do southern Italy properly. Why not? Lecce. Napoli. And Pompeii! It's an adventure.
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