Last day in Fasano

[5 March 2004]

Yet another in a seemingly long line of leisurely days. Truth be told (and it will) we didn't have much choice. 

Anyway, after breakfast we left for Locorotondo about 10 am. It’s a short drive, only about 8 or so kms from Fasano but we decide to take a bit of back road over the Murge (the ridgeline which runs parallel with the sea) to get there. 

We find a place to park right off (surprise) and before we can get out of the car two policemen pull up and point out where we can buy our parking tickets. It turns out to be a business directly in front of our car. Nice gesture. 

And speaking of parking your car some of the towns in this area use the parking ticket machines but a great many of them use a rather different and quite novel method. You look for a sign with the big blue P on it and which lists the hours for parking etc – in Locorotondo the sign was in English and Italian but this is not true everywhere. Where the sign is located there is a business that sells the cards. They look like scratch-off lottery cards and you buy blocks of 30 minutes. We wanted two hours so we were given four cards which the person selling them then scratched off the date, the time, etc. Quite awkward it seemed to us. Anyway you place cards on your dash like you would a normal parking ticket and you’re set.

During our stroll around Locortondo we bought some of the locally produced white wine (for which the town is famous), but finding little else open we returned to the car and drove toward Bari on back-roads. We cruised through and/or around Putignano, Turi and near Mola di Bari we got back on the superstrada and headed home for lunch of salad, cheese and wine.

For our last meal we opted to eat at the Masseria and spend the rest of the day relaxing, packing up our things and working on our Italian, which is in serious need of work indeed. 

Dinner was again wonderful. Since there was only one other guest staying besides Susie and me our host set us all up for dinner in a little side room with a large fireplace to help take the (significant) chill off the evening. Food was delicious as usual: started with eggplant, fried artichokes, pureed fava beans and small panzarotti (little pockets of dough with various fillings). For primi we had a simple orchiette (“tiny ears”) pasta with a simple, tasty tomato sauce. For the secondi we had grilled lamb with raw chicory and fennel pieces.

Down the Salento Peninsula

[4 March 2004]

A leisurely Thursday morning. Sue does some more wash before we set out for a road trip down south. We decided to drive down to the Salento peninsula, down toward the tip of Puglia. By 10am we're on  the road after filling with gas and after about 60 kms get off the superstrada onto a secondary road reportedly running along the Adriatic coast. At least that’s what the atlas shows but in fact very little of the road is along the coast but a bit inland. 

We track from resort town to resort town each one of which appears totally uninhabited; shops and most buildings shuttered, hardly another soul in sight. It felt quiet eerie. Still, one can see from the businesses that this must be a thriving place in the summer. 

Anyway the day is sunny although cold and very windy; plus the drive is very nice and little (and I mean little) traffic so we enjoy ourselves. The beaches are empty of people but many are still littered with the debris and detritus from the previous season. Not especially attractive. At one point we find ourselves driving alongside what appears to be some serious maneuvers of the Italian armored unit and notice numerous tanks, self-propelled howitzers running parallel to our road and just a few meters away. Pretty spectacular actually.

We arrive in the coastal town of Otranto and decide to park and look for some lunch. We do find a few shops open selling souvenirs of course and we do take the opportunity to buy some more wine for our pantry. It is extremely windy and quite cold here but the sun is out which is a consolation.

During a walk around the old part of the town – which is mostly designed to cater to the summer tourist business apparently – we find ourselves in a most unusual little church in the middle of the old section. The floor is virtually one enormous mosaic telling a great many different bible stories. And in one of the side chapels, very well lit I might add and quite striking in its miniature duomo-like appearance we see the walls are covered with glass and behind the glass are literally hundreds of skulls and various other skeletal components. Apparently these were the inhabitants of Otranto who were massacred by the Turks many centuries ago and subsequently enshrined here. Curious to say the least. We ask the sexton to see the underground crypt and chapel which is small to be sure but has over 40 Norman columns separating the space and the walls are adorned with very old frescoes, paintings of various saints, angels, etc.

The seasonal curse continue to haunt us and we strike out in lunch – as usual – and head back north this time take the superstrada. We opt to get off at Lecce to check out the city and look for lunch. Here we strike out again but in a rather different, and potentially disastrous way. 

 As I was turning into a parking space a young woman on a motor scooter comes out of nowhere and hits our driver side rear door. Fortunately no one is hurt and little damage is done to the car. The girl’s motor scooter is damaged to the extent it won’t start and we are now at an impasse. She can’t speak english, we speak very little Italian of any value in this situation. She is calm, and we try to be. 

I try to call Avis – thank heavens for renting a cell phone – but their emergency number produces a recorded message, which is, of course, useless. The local Avis office does not answer. 

Anyway the young woman calls her friend and a few minutes later he shows up on a bicycle. We fill out the paperwork provided by Avis – one good bit of news – and after about an hour or so say ciao and we’re off again, a bit shaken. I am beginning to tire of driving around to what seems little purpose. The rare time we do find parking we find very little is open. It’s a frustrating combination.

So, it’s back home again in time for wine and cheese and a siesta before going out to pick up laundry from yesterday. Dinner at home this evening: pasta with a sauce made from fennel, onion and balsamic vinegar. 

Exploring Puglia 2004

 [3 March 2004]

We decided to be low key today. After breakfast Sue did some laundry by hand and set it out on various pieces of furniture to dry by the heaters. And we do need heaters today. It has been cold pretty much the entire time – yesterday was cold and rainy today is just cold and windy. 

But it's time to get out and explore Puglia! We head into the nearest town, Pezze di Greco where we drop some laundry off – pants and shirts, which can’t be done at our place. Then we head off for the Emmezetta for a quick stop to buy a replacement bedside lamp for one Steve broke the night before. We also find another bag to use for check-in since Vito gave us a variety of his canned vegetables and homemade grappa and Rosa has already warned us she intends to give us some of her foodstuffs as well.

After our morning errands we head to Alberobello and serious trulli country. We find the zona trulli, walk around but it is terribly cold and there is very little of anything going on anyway. 

We head next to Grotte di Castellana to see if the grottoes are open this time of year. The Blue Guide says no and it certainly seems as if most things in the vicinity of the grottoes are indeed closed. But in fact we do get in with a small group consisting of a German woman, and three other Americans, an elderly couple and a young woman carrying a newborn child. The excursion underground lasts about an hour and a half and it is truly a fantastic thing to behold. Well worth a stop. 

From the Grottoes we head back toward Fasano taking a back road through a wonderful little valley, which puts us in Selva di Fasano on the ridge overlooking Fasano with fantastic views of the coast. 

 We get back to our apartment and fix a bit of lunch – salumi, cheese, bread and some white wine. 

About 4 in the afternoon we head back into Ostuni – after trying to find the neolithic “Tavole dei Paladini”, the Table of the Knights, near Montalbana but fail to locate its whereabouts. We circumnavigate Ostuni and find a place to park right at the entrance to the old center of the town. We walk a bit – very windy still and quite cold but the view is truly spectacular from this vantage point and itself worth a stop. But there are many quaint – and some not so quant – shops scattered throughout the town. Some are open but many more are closed. And very few ristoranti or Osterie seem to be open although in fairness it is still quite early (only about 5:30 pm). We head back to the apartment for dinner and for the evening.

One can only imagine how wonderful it must be in spring and summer, to be outside in the evening for dinner, on the beach during the day. Still, we begin to wonder if a week in Puglia is a bit too much time to spend here at this time of year.

along the Adriatic

Stornara 1944 to 2004

 [2 March 2004]

We left our apartment at Masseria Salamina in Fasano and headed north to Stornara. Our one and only objective today was to meet with Vito Campagna and his granddaughter Luisa Tampone. In fact, this meeting was why we came to Puglia in the first place. 

Vito

In 1944 Vito was a young man working for the Col. Thomas Steed, commander of the 456th Bomb Group, then located at the US airfield in Stornara, not far from Cerignola. Susan's father Tunis had served as a navigator on B-24s serving with the 456th. After the war Vito stayed in contact with many of the men who had been posted to Stornara -- including Col. Steed -- and over subsequent years many of the veterans and their families returned to visit the old airfield. Ed Moore, a member of the bomber crew to which Susan’s dad belonged to during the war, had given us Vito's name and Luisa's email and we arranged to meet them in the central piazza of Stornara on 2 March.

 We arrived in Stornara in the middle of market day but could not find the meeting place. Since we had the foresight to rent a cell phone we called Luisa and about five minutes later we were all together and on our way to the airfield.

There was little left of the old field since the land has been turned to agricultural uses and the buildings which had been used by the bomb group HQ were pretty much abandoned – particularly the former HQ of the colonel commanding the base which had apparently been at one time the palazzo of local nobility and was pretty much in ruins. But Vito brought his personal archives along – newspaper clippings, documents and letters that he received from various members of the men who served here during the war, items which he cherishes a great deal.

We drove further on down into where the airstrip itself used to be located and where Vito now has an absolutely wonderful garden: olive trees, apricot trees, fig trees, grapes, artichokes, tomatoes, just about everything one could want or hope to have in a garden in Italy.

me, Vito and Susie

Susie, Vito and Luisa

in Vito's garden

runways turned into fields of crops

From the old airfield it was a short drive back to Vito’s house in Stornara where we met one of his two daughters, Franca (Luisa’s aunt) and where we had coffee and continued to look over all of Vito's WW2 memorabilia from the old airfield. His smile was infectious and his openness and warmth toward Susie and me drew us to him. The joy he seems to derive from being around other people reminded me so much of my own father whose sole purpose in life was to simply enjoy the company of others.

From Stornara we followed Luisa and Vito to Cerignola where we had lunch at Luisa’s parents’ house.

About ten minutes later after turning down several very tiny streets in Cerignola we have arrived at the Tampone series of flats. We climbed up to the third floor (they also have the fourth floor as well) and were welcomed into a wonderful cozy house and almost at once the photo books came out and we quite some time looking at photos of all their family members. It was a singularly pleasant feeling that continued to hold us in its grasp for the next several hours.

We were joined for lunch by Luisa’s parents Rosa and Giuseppe (nicknamed “Peppino”), both nurses in the local hospital. Rosa headed up the operating room and Giuseppe was the chief nursing administrator in charge of information systems. We also met Luisa’s younger brother Antonio, who was about 16 years old.

Rosa prepared a superb meal for all of us – antipasti consisting of olives in oil, tiny onions preserved in oil, two variations on mozzarella cheese, and two types of salami. Rosa also laid out two bottles of Vito’s white wine, a bit sweet and most pleasant for this meal.

Next came the pasta – simple spaghetti which Rosa brought out to ask us or rather Susan if this is OK – in a sauce she put up last August and a few basil leaves preserved in salt placed on top. From there it was straight to the fish course, a delicious light white fish somewhat like cod in appearance but with a meatier texture and more flavor, almost sweet, which Rosa had prepared by poaching in a bit of oil and capers and herbs; this was accompanied by green lettuce with oil and vinegar tossed on at the last moment.

For the dolce course we had fresh fruit cut up with a bit of sugar and sprinkled with homemade limoncello.

After dinner we went upstairs to the top flat that had once been the apartment of Giuseppe’s mother who died some years previous. We sat in a small room around a warm fire and talked and drank Amaro and coffee until it was time to go back to our apartment in Fasano.

Rosa and Giuseppe wanted us to stay that night but we felt totally unprepared for this. One just does not see Americans behaving in this fashion – asking total strangers to stay in their home for the night. And yet that's the Italian for you. They said why drive back tonight, just stay with us! No, we had no toothbrush, etc., was our excuse. But the more we thought on it the more we wanted to spend time with this family.

At the very least they asked us to stop and stay with them on the way back to Rome. So that is now the plan. We will leave our agriturismo in Fasano a day early and head to Cerignola on Saturday and spend the night with the Tampone’s before heading to Rome on Sunday.

Exploring Puglia and shopping for groceries

[1 March, 2004]

Breakfast at 8:30 Monday morning. Wonderful coffee; Sue has hot milk with hers and I take mine straight out of the pitcher. That’s right, like Amalfi they bring us both a small pitcher of dark, rich coffee, and a second pitcher of frothed milk. 

We inquire about the nearest supermercato (supermarket) and we’re off to shop for the week since we plan to fix most of the meals ourselves. We find the place – called Emmezetta -- about the size of the Pentagon but square – and learn it doesn’t open until 3 in the afternoon. Since it’s 10 in the morning we have time to kill and head off to explore. 

First we head for the ruins of Egnazia where we find ourselves to be the only tourists but enjoy the museum and a walk around the grounds and find ourselves stepping through quite a few fallen olives. Indeed, this land abounds in olive trees unlike anything we have ever seen anywhere else. We see (and occasionally smell) thousands of olive trees. And I mean HUGE olive trees; many of them must be ancient indeed. They are fantastic to see.

Next, we decide to head off along the coast road for Ostuni and Locorotondo up in the hills overlooking the sea.

Over the next several hours we make a few slightly painful discoveries: first we can’t find a section of the ancient Via Traiana which is reportedly located just off the superhighway on the way to Ostuni up from the coast (near Villanova) and we actually looked twice during the day for this section. Also we discover that while this area is pretty popular place with Europeans in the spring and summer, what with the beaches, etc., many places are closed on Monday and some are still closed for the season. Naturally this also applies to ristoranti as well since we can’t find anyplace to have lunch. 

The upside is we do get to see scores of the conical-shaped trulli; fascinating architectural marvels.

Eventually we make our way back to Emmezetta just off the superstrada near Fasano and spend an hour browsing and buying staples for the week.We drive home and decide to relax for the evening. Our meal for the evening was home-cooked sautéed chicken, fennel, onions and tomatoes with a side of broccoli.