Puglia, Part 3.

Piazza S. Pietro, Galatina. The church of Saint Peter and Paul.

On this next phase of our trip in Puglia, I planned to drive up the Adriatic coast as far as the tip of the spur of the boot. After researching this area I felt convinced that we should make this trek, even though it did involve a certain amount of driving, as much as 4 hours on the first day, but we were happy we did as we were able to get a comprehensive view of the area and visit some very beautiful locations.

The white line indicates our route. Day one: Salve-Galatina-Trani. Day two: Trani-Vieste. Day three: Vieste-Montegrosso. Day four: Montegrosso-Brindisi.

Dave explained that the best way to get up the east coast of the boot was actually to travel inland until we were well north of Brindisi as the coast road isn't a highway until that point. He suggested that we should not miss Galatina, which we would go right past with its spectacular church interior of Santa Caterina d'Alessandria. The only trouble was that we left their house at 11 and churches are closed between 12:30 and 4:00 in Puglia for some reason. It was an hour's drive. We hit traffic as we were entering the outskirts of Galatina, giving us an even narrower margin. We had no idea where the church was and were not aware that within this smallish town, there are actually 24 churches. When we drove up to Piazza S. Pietro we assumed that the church there was the one we were looking for and I jumped out while Rick found a place to park. The minute I walked inside what turned out to be the Church of Saint Peter and Paul, I realized this wasn't the one we were looking for. Rick came and we ran up to another church in the neighborhood that we saw and found that was also not the one. We asked a local who gave us complicated directions in Italian, but she pointed to her watch. We hurried on and followed her directions as best we could, going in the general direction she had been pointing, but still could not find our way. We saw a policeman and asked him, and we followed his directions to finally reach the door of the church at about 12:26. A kind man at the door waved us in but pointed to his watch. We had about four minutes to take in the exquisite decoration.

It really was one of the most beautiful churches I have ever visited.

Santa Caterina d'Alessandria nave

Apparently the frescos were painted by a disciple of Giotto, the father of the Italian Renaissance. The church itself was finished in 1391. It is a perfect combination of Romanesque and Gothic styles.

I think Galatina has a lot more to discover than we had time for, but we still had several hours of driving ahead of us to reach Trani, our goal for the day, so we reluctantly bid farewell to this charming little town.

Santa Caterina d'Alessandria interior.

Trani, the pearl of the Adriatic, is a coastal town that I discovered while doing my research before embarking upon our voyage. It is not a well-known destination for travelers, which made it particularly appealing to me. It has a long and interesting history. During the Middle Ages Trani, then known as Turenum, was one of the most important port towns in Europe, well-placed to aid the crusaders on their way to battle in the Holy Land. It also had a large Jewish population, which was personally protected by the king.

Il fortino, the little fort at the marina where one gets a magnificent view over the Adriatic and the town.

We found this to be a very lovely location with many fine buildings and a beautiful port where we took a pleasant stroll in the evening. There were several fishermen on the dock with their fresh catch for sale. It seemed to me that Trani would be a fine place to make a home.

Entrance to the harbor of Trani, with its red and green channel markers.

Our hotel was my favorite of our trip, right off the port with a charming little balcony to watch the boats coming and going.

Trani cathedral, completed in 1143

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The steeple has been a landmark for mariners for hundreds of years.

We had dinner at a nice little place we found on a back street. The old waiter was quite a flirt and he engaged me in some silly conversations which I was happy to go along with. At the end of the meal he pulled a flower out of a vase and handed it to me, apologizing to Rick before doing so. He didn't really speak English and we speak few words of Italian so our back and forth was relatively incomprehensible.

We saw this stunning sunset behind the magnificent Trani fort, now a museum.

I could have spent much longer in Trani as I found it not only comfortable, friendly and beautiful but quite welcoming and warm.

View of the sunrise from our hotel balcony.

But we had to get a move on, as our ultimate destination was Vieste, the town I was most interested in visiting. Truth be told, in the final analysis I preferred Trani, but I didn't know that would be the case at the time.

Morning in Trani, view from the hotel dining room.

Vieste, at the very tip of the spur of Italy's boot, with one of the most stunning settings imaginable.

Photo by Claudio Mortini

To get there, however, is no small feat. Most of Southern Italy is quite flat, but once you turn onto the peninsula that is the Italian boot spur, you begin to climb into a very different craggy landscape. The Gargano National Park, which covers this part of Italy is truly breathtaking. Driving to Vieste, on narrow mountain roads takes a couple of hours. Once you arrive, you feel as if you have left the rest of the civilized world behind and entered some kind of stunning fantasy. We did wonder how people get supplies in to town during rough weather. It is very remote.

Beautiful ocean views as we made our way up and over the mountains to Vieste.

There is absolutely nothing ordinary about this town and every outlook is worthy of a photograph. The narrow streets are full of life and charm. The sea surrounds you on three sides. The buildings are made from the white limestone that makes up the peninsula. There is almost no modern building to detract from the sensation of being in some former epoch.

Church at land's end in Vieste. Notice the ancient fishing nets suspended on poles. This is the traditional and still used way of fishing.

We had a pleasant lunch at a restaurant just a half block from our guest room. The window of our room looked out onto the street where people strolled, children played and vendors sat waiting for their customers.

The lovely restaurant where we had a delicious lunch.

We took a long walk, up and down, as the town is built on a steep hill. At every turn there was something charming and picturesque to notice.

Walk around the shore of the peninsula.

Still, for some reason the town made me feel a little claustrophobic. Of course the narrow streets echoed with every sound, the wind howled and whipped us around as we strolled by the shore and I was quite aware how far we were from anywhere else. I was very happy we had gotten to see such a splendid spot, but at the same time, I was not that sorry to leave.

The restaurant where we had dinner.

After a night in Vieste, we retraced our steps and headed inland to the town of Montegrosso for the last evening of our stay. On the way we visited a remarkable structure called Castel del Monte. It was built in the 13th century and it sits in the middle of a forest on a hill with no settlement anywhere in sight. Somehow it looks rather modern to me, stark and massive. It is basically a round stone structure surrounded symmetrically by eight hexagonal towers. It doesn't seem Medieval at all, and yet it was built 800 years ago. It is a UNESCO world heritage site and touted as the most formidable military defensive structure of the Middle Ages. We didn't take the tour.

Castel del Monte, castle of the mountain.

When first arranging our trip, we received many suggestions of where to go and what to do. One such idea was that we really should, if only we could, try to go to the restaurant Antichi Sapori in the tiny village of Montegrosso. It is mentioned in the Michelin guide and its chef Pietro Zito is renowned. We were told that it books up months in advance. We were intrigued, and as you may have guessed from this story so far, we derive a lot of pleasure from a nice meal. I wrote to the restaurant and was able to get us a reservation for our very last night in Puglia and I also found a guest house just a three minute walk from the restaurant where we could spend the night. Of course we had been looking forward to this with great enthusiasm. The night finally arrived and we found ourselves at the door of this fabled eatery.

The door of Antichi Sapori, plastered with all their awards and honors from 30 years.

The woman who seated us was inordinately friendly and charming. She had fair skin and strawberry blonde hair and spoke impeccable English. In the course of our several conversations with her throughout the evening, we discovered that one of her parents was German but that she did not speak German at all. She had grown up in Italy but had learned English at a famous culinary school in Turin.

When we were seated, she explained to us that for first time customers it was suggested that we have the tasting menu, which, we were told, involved having each of the 11 available starters, 2 pasta dishes, a choice between either a vegetarian main course or a mixed grill and one of each of the desserts offered on the menu. I was a little taken aback and asked if that wasn't quite a lot of food for one meal. She assured me that it was all very small portions and that it was the recommended experience. So of course we followed her advice.

The starters began to arrive, one after the other. They were all lovely, they were all tasty, but by the end of them we were quite full already. When the first pasta dish arrived we bravely soldiered on but by the second one, which was promptly followed by not one, but two meat dishes, plus a fruit platter "to help us digest the meat" and a lovely little salad, we were beginning to swoon.

Rick has something called vasovagal syncope, a benign condition that occasionally leads to a sudden drop in blood pressure, which drains the blood from his head and can make him very woozy. It seems only to come over him in restaurants. In Florence several years ago he actually fainted and a waiter just happened to be standing behind him to catch him as he fell backwards in his chair. In that case an ambulance was called and there was much unwanted and unnecessary kerfuffle, as once he gets over the fainting spell he is entirely normal again. This summer he almost keeled over at a restaurant in Aix-en-Provence, but instead just put his head on the table where he rested it for about fifteen minutes while the waiters ran around with cold compresses for his neck and glasses of water to revive him and the whole family clustered around.

When he began to feel this same sensation in this fancy Michelin restaurant I told him we had to get out of there before we caused a scene. His condition is not threatening to his health in any way, and is quickly over, leaving no side-effects but can be a bit dramatic in the moment. I called our lovely hostess over and explained the situation to her. She, amazingly, suffers from the same syndrome so was extremely sympathetic, went into the kitchen to explain it to the big-time chef and got our food wrapped up for us to take away. The sweetest thing she said to us, as we were walking out the door, was that she'd be in the restaurant the next day at five and invited us to come say hello to her then, as if she would really like to see us again. Alas, we had to be at the airport at that time so we weren't able to take her up on the offer. But it definitely touched my heart. And by the way, the minute we were on the street again, with the cool night air on his face Rick completely recovered and was as good as new.

I don't know what it is about certain fancy restaurants that imagine the more food you have, the better your experience will be. Au contraire! This has happened once before to us at a Michelin starred establishment in France. I think it's the wrong concept myself. There is a big difference between gourmet and gourmand.

These were all the dishes we were presented with, we never got to the 10 desserts!

We had a very pleasant time in Puglia. I am not sure that life will take us there again, but we were quite happy to have had this wonderful opportunity in such a beautiful location.

Have a very happy Thanksgiving, one and all. I will be taking a couple of weeks off, but hope to rejoin you in early December.