Puglia Revisited

Wednesday 17^th May

It rained all night, but it did stop at breakfast time and the sun peeked out then, beyond all expectation, it stayed out for most of the day!  We started the day driving west to Gravina-In-Puglia, in search of a bridge that James Bond jumped off, in the movie ‘No Time To Die’. Somehow, we accidentally found a road with good views across the ravine to the city and the famous bridge. Most of the scene was filmed in Matera, but they apparently seamlessly stitched the bridge of Gravina into the scenes shot in Matera. All very confusing if you ask me.

We then travelled back eastwards on minor potholed roads to Alberobello, the only place that we could find any campsites. We came here in Eileen The Motorhome in 2016 and absolutely loved the place. But I have always said, it’s a mantra of mine, don’t go back to places you fall in love with. And we should have stuck to that mantra. All my lovely memories feel like they have been swept away and the only restaurant open for dinner served up the most awful meal. Whilst eating, huge black clouds came over resulting in a massive downpour, which thankfully stopped just as we were paying the bill.  We’re seriously thinking of making a new plan tomorrow.

Thursday 18^th May

And that’s exactly what we did. There were only heavy clouds around with no actual rain drops in the morning, but we decided to do something completely left of field.  We booked ourselves into a B&B, the Trulli Dai Conte, for two nights. We stopped for a nice lunch at Restaurant Pavi in Locorotondo and sat gazing out over the trulli filled landscape below us.  We could see Martina Franca on the horizon directly south of us. To the east, the white buildings of Cisternino glowed when the cracks of sunshine hit them and everywhere in between were green fields dotted with olive trees, grapevines, poppies and a bit of everything else.

At 4:00 pm, after travelling along very narrow laneways, we managed to arrive at Trulli Dai Conte, about 1.5 kilometres from Locorotondo.  The owner helped us park Reggie between two olive trees in the garden and then showed us into the tiny trulli apartment. The shower is smaller than the one in Reggie, the kitchen is bigger, and the bed is in the lounge!  But it’s so cosy and cute it will be a nice break for both of us. Hopefully the sun will shine tomorrow and we’ll be able to sit in the garden. Fingers are still crossed.