Trulli the end

Underground again

At this point, Sweetie and I were starting to feel poorly. Our first stop of the day was the Grotte di Castellana. I still felt well enough to explore the caves. Even if Sweetie had been well, she would not have wanted to do all the climbing and descending and keeping footing on wet rocks. It would have been Erice all over again. So Sweetie stayed with the bus and later went with another remainer to check out some outside things. I masked up and did the cave thing.

I think it was the management that screwed up our time slot, not our people, because we were there pretty early. Our dogged tour guide hashed it out with them whilst we were entertained (perhaps) by an elderly gravel-voiced troubador. We ended up going into the caves with an Italian guide with translation provided by our own tour guide doing extra duty, because otherwise it would have taken too long until the next English-language tour.

We were allowed to photograph only in the first huge chamber, which was quite spectacular enough. We then proceeded through smaller spaces and a huge variety of stalactites and other rock growths from the ceiling, accompanied by expected (stalagmites) and less-expected formations on the floor. There was a lot of up and down, and the way sometimes got damp. Sweetie would not have liked it at all. Fortunately, I am part mountain goat, and I enjoyed it.

Trulli could be yours!

From there, we drove to Alberobello. First, lunch at Miseria e Nobiltà (named for a film, I believe). I did not note what we had! I'm going to guess some kind of sausage pasta. I recall a puff pastry for dessert, which we had outside, and a small purchase of wine.

Then we were off on a walk through occasional spitting rain to the part of Alberobello that's packed with world-famous Trulli houses. I think people recognize them even if they don't know what they're called. On the genuine ones, the roof stones are self-supporting without mortar, like igloos. The weight gets evenly distributed through the stones. Apparently, if you took the roof down when the tax people came, you got taxed less. Then you built the roof again.

I quite enjoyed this neighbourhood of nothing but Trulli houses as far as the eye could see. As it was a tourist area, there were buskers about. One was a harpist sounding quite lovely in the setting. Then he played a tune that I recognized and quickly identified: "Shallow" by Lady Gaga, a song I love. I got a little verklempt because it was beautiful and evocative.

Densification

Sweetie and I then walked to the other side of the valley and just looked around. I did the stand-up coffee thing, not having recaffeinated after lunch. We wanted to visit the Basilica of Saints Cosmas and Damian, but we ran out of time.

By dinner time, we were both feeling pretty punk, and not in a good way. We wanted to socialize (we really did -- this was a great bunch of interesting people), but we did not want anyone getting our germs, so we convinced our beloved guru to have the staff set up a "kids table." They were kind enough to do so. So we were spreading airborne germs in the room but hopefully in lower concentration than if we'd been right in the thick of things. As far as I know, no one got sick after the trip.

The wait staff took great care of us at our side table. I don't remember if there was pasta, but the secondo was a steak, and it was pretty much on-the-money medium rare and full of grass-fed deliciousness! And then tiramisù for Sweetie (she had missed it the evening before), and an insane chocolate mousse thing for me.

Rare selfie, with Trulli houses

The schedule for the next day was a drive to Lecce for its rich artistic heritage (as our tour book says), way down toward the end of the boot heel, have lunch at a local restaurant, and then to drive back to Ostuni, the "whitewashed city." If we hadn't been feeling like poo, we would have liked to have seen more of Puglia.

Instead, along with three other tired-out folks, we stayed behind at the Masseria, spent a lazy morning, had an amazing salmon crudo salad and porky pasta for lunch, then later took a walk through the olive trees. They're pruned small, but you can tell by their gnarly trunks that they're quite old. Lecce and Ostuni were great, I'm sure, but we needed and enjoyed our day off.

Despite the room being huge but empty, the log desk being nearly impossible to write at, and the bathroom having no where to hang or put anything, we really enjoyed our stay at Masseria Santa Teresa. We were sorry to leave it at 3 am to be driven to Bari Airport for a flight to Rome and the beginning of our interminable homeward journey that you do not want to hear about.

(The disease was just a cold, albeit a nasty one. I did a COVID rapid test as soon as I got home and it came up negative.)

Pancho stealing focus from the olive trees