Christmas 2014 - Southern Italy

Ok, as you know, for the past two Christmas' we have gone to an African country (Egypt and Morocco) to celebrate the holidays.  This year, with all the unrest on the African continent, we decided to take a pass.  But where shall we go?

We wanted warmer weather than Germany, we wanted to take our bikes and we wanted to drive.  We decided upon Southern Italy.  So away we went.....

Our first stop was a gorgeous hilltop gasthaus in the countryside near Castel San Pietro Terme - just SE of Bologna.

Osteria de Cesare e Locanda
It was one of the nicest Locanda's (Gasthaus) we have stayed in.
The location was amazing and the owners and the dinner was superb.

The trattoria!

Appies and wine.
We had an amazing dinner at the trattoria on-site.

The next day we took a small detour to 'hit' another country - San Marino.  We stopped for lunch and enjoyed the view the city of San Marino had to offer.

It as a long and windy drive up to San Marino.
When we got there we couldn't see much
but was it ever beautiful.

On our third day, we had a little mishap, just 50 miles from our destination.  Tim put gasoline in our diesel car.  Yes, you read it right!  OOPS!  Luckily Tim didn't start the engine and luckily we had ADAC (German version of CAA/BCAA/AAA - you get it).

We were towed to the closest junk yard, where they
cleaned out the tank and the lines.

Three hours later and €450.00 later, we were on our way.

OSTUNI, APULIA - THE HEEL OF ITALY'S BOOT

We stayed, for a week at Masseria Bellavista, located just outside of the white town of Ostuni, in Puglia (Apulia).  Joe (Giuseppe - originally from Naples) and Daniel, Canadians from Montreal who moved to Puglia about 3 years ago, manage the Masseria and provided us with as much local information as we wanted.  They shared with us local places to see (and not to see).  They were wonderful hosts.

Masseria Bellavista is an authentic fortified farmhouse, set among 14 ha of olive groves, typical of the Puglia region built in 1789 and has recently been refurbished.  Everything (except for the odd ancient olive tree) was reared, cultivated, fed and lived inside the walls.  Many have been left to decay and a lucky few have been lovingly restored into rental villas or beautiful hotels.

The many masserie, in the region, stand out amidst the foliage of the olive tress that stretch out across the plain as far as the eye can see.  Imposing buildings, which began to be built in the 16th century as towers to defend the underlying olive mills where the real wealth of this territory, the olive oil, was produced.

Our 'crib' for the week of Christmas!!

'Our' front yard

'Our' back yard

'Our' view to Ostuni!!

Our first dinner after a very stressful day.
Looks pretty Italian!!!

Our first bike ride through the olive groves and along the old roman roads.

Some of the olive trees are 2000 yrs old.

OSTUNI

Daytime view of Ostuni from our Masseria

Night view of Ostuni from our Masseria!

Lunch in Ostuni. Orecchiette pasta. OMG was it good!
Interesting fact - one typically cannot get a pizza for lunch in Italy!
Why you ask?
Because it takes a long time to fire up a wood burning pizza oven
and is considered a waste of time and energy to fire it up at lunch.

ALBEROBELLO

Alberobello is a UNESCO Heritage Site located about 35 km NW of Ostuni.  It is famous for its unique drystone dwellings known as trulli.  This prehistoric building technique, using limestone boulders collected from neighbouring fields are mortarless and feature pyramidal, domed or conical roofs.  It is one of the best preserved and most homogenous urban areas of this type in Europe.  What makes it really special and unique, is that the buildings are still occupied.

CHRISTMAS EVE

Upon our arrival at Masseria Bellavista, Joe and Daniel invited us to join them in a traditional Italian Christmas dinner.  We shared the cost of the food and wine and they did all the cooking - amazing!

Christmas dinner, in Italy, is held on Christmas Eve.

The venue!

Underneath half of the Masseria is the 'barn' or rather the workshop where the farmers use to carry out their business, buying, selling, trading their goods.  During the colder months, the fireplace was used to heat the entire house.

Joe and Daniel set up the dinner table here in the workshop.  It truly was majestic!   Experience unsurpassed!  Thank-you guys, SO MUCH, you made our Christmas one of the best ever.

The Menu

antipasto
Plate of four differs types of cold cuts - speck (Sud Tirol), mortadella, etc. 
homemade marinated Aubergine
mozzarella 'knots'- burrato mozzarella- rich and creamy 
plate of four different types of cheeses, gorgonzola with pears, smoked cheese, etc.
olives
sun dried tomatoes in oil
marinated mushrooms
fruit bowl with grapes, clementines
fresh bread

Wine
Primitivo wine -Rosso

primo
freshly made orecchiette pasta with homemade tomato sauce topped with fresh Parmesan


il secondo
pork rolanade stuffed with cheese
bombette - skewers of bacon wrapped beef bbq'd on the open fire


contorno
arugula salad with olive oil dressing and shaved Parmesan


dolce
pandoro
fresh chestnuts roasted on the open fire
Italian nougat
Italian chocolates
walnuts
fruit


homemade limoncello

Jayne, Joe and Daniel

An unforgettable evening and dinner!
Thank-you sooooo much Joe and Daniel!

CHRISTMAS DAY

Tim and I entered the 21st century in September this year
- we finally got rid of our Dell computers and bought some Apple products!!
Merry Christmas!

After breaky we went for a bike ride.

An abandoned Masseria

Ostuni in the background

Olives, olives and more olives!!!

AND A DRIVE TO LECCE

After our ride we drove to Lecce, which is about 110 km SE of Ostuni.

A trip to Puglia wouldn't be complete without a visit to Lecce - 'Siena of the South'.  Nothing was open but the odd café AND the place was empty.  We felt like we had the city to ourselves. We loved it!

It is a very clean and neat city with baroque buildings on every corner and the sandstone streets were lines with trendy cocktail bars, interesting design shops, traditional Italian eateries and contemporary sushi bars.

Duomo Cathedral in Piazza del Duomo
First built in 1114 and refurbished in 1230 and
in 1670 decorated in Baroque style by Giuseppe Zimbolo

Piazza del Duomo

We found an amazing traditional Italian eatery for lunch.

Perfect!

Some of the details of the Basilica de Santa Croce.
Its ornate exterior is the epitome of Leccese Baroque style.
It is currently undergoing major renovation, so a photo of the whole exterior was impossible.

Absolutely stunning details.

This white board (with pens) was installed in one of the town squares
so the locals and visitors could write Christmas wishes to their loved ones.
If you look closed, at the bottom left of the blue monster,
you will see our Christmas wishes to my sister and her family.

OUR CHRISTMAS DINNER

The start of our Canadian Christmas Dinner

Christmas Dinner in our Masseria!

POLIGNANO A MARE

Polignano a Mare is a gorgeous little seaside town about 48 km NE of Ostuni perched atop a 20m high limestone cliff.  It has all the right ingredients as a perfect destination for a day trip.  It combines charming white washed streets with beautiful old churches.  The winding streets are perfect for getting yourself lost, which is not a problem as you eventually find your way to one of these amazing panoramic terrraces offering breathtaking views of the beautiful Adriatic Sea and coastline.

Note - Singer / songwriter Domenic Modugno got his inspiration for the song 'Volare' from this lovely seaside town.

We stopped to warm up with a coffee at this lovely seaside cafe.

LUNCH IN OSTUNI

I think I mentioned earlier in this post that is was almost impossible to find a pizza at lunch.
Ah ha!  We found one in Ostuni.

It was amazing!!!

Ostuni's centro storico

Some rooftops of Ostuni.

A DRIVE THROUGH THE OLIVE GROVES

One roads that we drove on and cycled on was the Via Triana, an ancient Roman road road built 2000 years ago by the emperor Traiano to link Rome with the harbour of Brindisi to help with the trade in olive oil - authentic liquid gold.

Puglia is famous for its trulli, orecchiette pasta and its glorious sandy beaches, but nothing is as Puglia defining as their 50-60 million olive trees that carpet the region. Some of them are hundreds and thousands years old.  Puglia's olive trees are iconic and play an extremely important role in the region from an economically and environmentally.

Miles upon miles upon miles of dirt roads, stone walls and olive trees.

Puglia produces over 36% of Italy's entire olive crop.

The gnarled and knotted trunk of a very very very old olive tree.

Nearly every tree is tagged and catalogued.

VILLANOVA

Villanova is a small seaside village about 5 km N of Ostuni.

Some random photos in Puglia......

Love it!  Even the dogs where scarves!

At the weekly market in Ostuni.

TO AMALFI WITH A STOP IN MATERA

Matera is known as 'la Cittá Sotterranea' (the Subterranean City).  It is well know for its historical centre called 'Sassi' which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  The habitations in the Sassi are dug into limestone rock and are said to be the first human settlements in Italy.

Until the late 1980s the Sassi was considered an area of poverty, since its dwelling were, and in most cases still are, uninhabitable. But with the aid of the Italian government, UNESCO and Hollywood, today it is thriving with businesses, pubs and hotels.

We didn't spend a lot of time in Matera, but I would certainly recommend a day here.  Parking was a problem too as our car had our bicycles on the back which made the height too high for some of the parking areas.

After we left Matera we drove through the Italian countryside to get to Amalfi.  We were trying to get there before dark as we had NO idea where our next apartment was.

The Italian Mountains

Ahhhhh, the sea at Salerno!!

The beginning of the Amalfi Coast

City of Amalfi

After Amalfi, we climbed and climbed and climbed.

It's getting darker....

....and much darker.
This isn't good...

... as this was the only map we had!!!  Seriously.

Finally - the view from 'our' apartment.

SENTIERO DEGLI DEI (THE PATH OF THE GODS)

The Path of the Gods is set in the most stunning natural beauty.  The panoramas are the most striking on Earth.  Halfway up the hill (I call it a mountain cliff), the path crosses from Bomerano, where we started, to Nocelle in Positano, through gorges cliffs and precipices of the Amalfi Coast.

Our first day in Amalfi started off very cold, very windy but very sunny and clear. We were not sure if we should attempt The Path of the Gods.  But we found our way to the path and started walking.......

The shepherds and goats still use the trail.

Wow! 

Positano.

Me and the goats!!

In the middle of the 1700 stairs to get to Positano.
And these stairs are the normal height - very difficult
never mind the 3.5 hrs of hiking we did just before the descent.

After lunch in Positano we caught a bus 'home'.  We stopped at the local butcher and bought dinner

Homemade Italian Wine - €2.50 and it was good!!

.....and the next day (31st December) we woke up to this......

The worst snow storm in 10 years in Amalfi
and we had to be here for it (with no winter clothes)

How do you like our view now?
So much for seeing the New Years Eve fireworks.

As we didn't plan on eating at 'home', we ventured out with all of our clothes on and went to the local supermarket for some food for dinner.  Luckily the stores were open.

New Year's Eve Dinner 2014!

TO ROME.....

The next day we drove up to Rome.

Upon our descent........we saw Mt. Vesuvius!!

Snow on Mt. Vesuvius - an uncommon sight!

Based on my cousin Jenni's recommendation we decided not to stay in Rome and booked a vacation rental in Ostia which is about 30km SW of Rome.  Ostia was the location of the harbour city of ancient Rome.  But due to silting, the water is now 3 km away.

We stopped at a restaurant to ask directions.  We ended up using their internet and having a wonderful lunch.

Name of the restaurant - Panda
Can you see why?

Our apartment was fantastic and the hosts were wonderful.  As soon as we got settled we got on our bikes and rode down to the beach.

The next day we took the train into Rome.

All the trains that we saw had graffiti on them!
An amazing sight.

Vatican City

One of the guards outside Vatican City

St. Peter's Basilica
St. Peter's Square
Vatican City

If you take a close look at the base of St. Peter's Basilica, at the top of the stairs....
that is the line up (a part of the line) to get in.
I believe it was a 4 hr wait.  Needless to say, we didn't go in.

The colossal Tuscan colonnades.

Nativity Scene set up in St. Peter's Square

details.....

Oh, and we saw the Pope....

....just kidding
(it is a magnet   lol)

Some of the sights we saw as we walked the streets of Rome on our way to the Roman Forum ('A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum'  lol) and the Colosseum

River Tiber

Love this 'food truck'!!!

Our lunch stop! 

Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II

also known as 'The Wedding Cake'
A monument built as a tribute to the first king of a united Italy.

The back stairs to The Wedding Cake

Inside the Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II

View from the top 

bird's eye view!

Ahhh, the Roman Forum

Apartments built into some of the old walls near the Forum.

The Colosseum

Street sights on the way to the Spanish Steps.....

The Spanish Steps - not too crowed - OMG

'quiet' street opposite the Spanish Steps!!!

Ostia Antica

Amazing!!  Thank-you cousin Jenni for suggesting this great piece of ancient Rome.

These ancient ruins are wonderfully complete and you can walk amongst them. It was founded in the 4th century BC and once home to up to 100,000 inhabitants.  Decline set in after the fall of the Roman Empire and by the 9th century the city had largely been abandoned.

I was in Pompeii years ago, and this, I think, is better.

and afterwards......

.....lunch at the local town market!!!!

Castle of Julius II in Ostia Antica

The next day, another bike ride to the sea.

with a coffee stop

and then lunch in Ostia Antica.

Now, unfortunately, it is time to go home  😞

We made one stop on the way home in the Bardolino wine area, just north of Verona, and stayed the night at a winery Agriturismo Sol de Montalto.  It was a very nice place and the apartment and the owners were wonderful.  We would definitely stay here again.

DRIVE HOME THROUGH NORTHERN ITALY AND AUSTRIA

As before, we are having to start another blog as this one 'has run out of space' (?).  Click  Tim and Jayne's Adventure Germany III  for the continuation of our blog!

Ciao!