Gallipoli

I start by saying my week in the southern end of Italy was beyond amazing. I saw some of the most unbelievable sights and met so many fantastic people that I believe the stars must have been aligned for my trip. It was perfect from start to finish!

The trip to Gallipoli was quite the adventure. Trenitalia does not go all the way to the southern end of the boot; it stops in Lecce and you have to take a “private” railway to go any further. FSE is the particular rail company that handles this portion of Puglia. I say company lightly. The train is more like a school bus on rails. It was hilarious to watch these guys. The conductor looked and acted like your average guy off the street; no uniform, no checking of tickets. In fact, since we stopped at every tiny little station known to southern Italian humanity, this guy would jump off the train and grab an espresso or have a smoke with another FSE employee while the rest of us waited on the non-air conditioned train. He could not have been bothered by a schedule; pretty glad I wasn’t either.

I stayed in the old city of Gallipoli, which is actually an island connected to the new city by a very long bridge. My hotel was right on the harbor and was adorable. It had huge rooms that opened off of a very Mediterranean like courtyard. The staff was nice or maybe I just decided that since no one spoke a word of English and I didn’t understand much of what they said to me. Either way, it worked.

My goal for my time in Gallipoli was to do nothing but lie in the sun and swim in the Ionian Sea; both of which I accomplished very well. The water is a gorgeous shade of greenish-blue and absolutely crystal clear. Both on the little beach of Gallipoli and a couple miles down the road in Baia Verde, the beach is sandy, which is a bit unusual. Not being one to squeeze into the masses on lounge chairs under umbrellas, I opted to find a free public beach at Baia Verde and camp out among the rocks and sand. It was perfect.

Apparently, Italian siesta also applies to hanging out on the beach. I noticed this phenomenon both days at 2 different beaches. People come out around 10am and then head in around 1pm. They will then come back out onto the beach around 3:30. From the hours of 1-3, I pretty much had the beach to myself.

During my second day at Baia Verde, I met a really great guy who lives in Rome. He noticed I was reading a book in English so he asked where I was from. They must not get many Americans in that area because most people were really excited when they found out I lived very close to Washington DC. I was pretty psyched to have someone, who I thought spoke English, to talk to, since I had not heard a word of it in almost 3 days. After the basic “where are you from” Marco reverted back to Italian only. My broken Italian must be better than I think because we ended up having a lot of conversation on the beach, followed up by aperitivi watching the sunset back in Gallipoli and dinner overlooking the harbor. And no, I was not dolci (dessert) at the end of the night. You guys are perverts!! I’m pretty sure Marco spoke more English than he let on because I know for a fact I used an awful lot of non-Italian that he understood.

So after three of what I deem to be perfect days, spending the days on a Mediterranean beach, drinking Prosecco while watching the sunset, and seeing fireworks at midnight because it was the festival of the towns patron saint, I headed out for Alberobello.

Olives instead of chips and a glass of Prosecco watching the sun set!

sunset over Gallipoli

drinks with Marco

very cool cafe overlooking Gallipoli's main harbor & beach

this block has three churches in a row.

Baia Verde

Baia Verde

Private beach at Baia Verde

another cool cafe for drinks at sunset

another perfect sunset

Gallipolis little beach

Piazza d'amici (Friend's square) where people sit in the afternoon and gossip.

mussles and spaghetti with delicious house wine

a view of the restaurant where I had the mussels

Summer shows up on the train to Alberobello

Once again, the train trip was a “show”. Because nothing in this country really makes sense or is a product of efficiency, I had to back track from Gallipoli two and half hours north to Bari, only to then head south again on a different FSE train for almost 2 hours. Really, if I could have gone straight from Gallipoli to Alberobello, I think it might have taken an hour total. Ah yes, but then I/Summer wouldn’t have gotten to meet Mr. Casa Nostra.

So we all pile onto this complete piece of crap train that clearly does not have enough seats for all of the people pouring in. I was fortunate enough to get a seat, but not fortunate enough to have the seat across from me remain unoccupied. Enter Mr. Casa Nostra. This man in his late 40s who screams mafia stereotype parks himself across from me and begins staring at me as if I am a freshly made panino and he hasn’t eaten in 3 weeks. I do a great job of ignoring him, while he utters who knows what at me in Italian, until he reaches over and grabs my wrist to get my attention. I promptly tell him I don’t speak Italian and look back out the window; this is not a problem to MCN. He continues to ask me questions and shake my wrist if I don’t answer. If I don’t understand him, he just asks me again louder. Yeah, that’s helpful! To avoid further embarrassment and attention being drawn to me, I break out my dictionary so I can answer his questions without all of Puglia being in on it.

Finally we get to the heart of the matter. MCN begins using sign language to supplement the Italian I do not understand. He wiggles his ring finger at me and asks if I’m married because he doesn’t see a wedding band. Shit! I tell him “no I’m not married but I do have a fiancé.” He replies, very clearly “oh no problem, single”. Yup, only in Italy does engaged mean single. Dammit!!! At this point we stop at yet another one olive tree town and more people get on. The only seat open is next to me, so a younger guy sits down and says buongiorno to me. I nod and smile and MCN leans into the guy, shakes his head at him, wags his finger no, and motions for the guy to move further away from me. I’m seeing a horse head in this guy’s bed if he doesn’t obey. Fortunately, for him the slides away by a couple of inches and looks the opposite direction. There goes that ray of hope. MCN then starts asking me my name over and over and over. I keep answering “no capisco, no capisco” at which point he takes my dictionary from me and looks up words for me. Desperate times call for desperate measures. [Angela, if you’re reading this, Summer is making a special guest appearance!] Without being able to ignore the translations, I give a fake name, Summer. She’s a faithful standby, has never let me down before, let’s hope she is just as reliable abroad. Now that he has my “name” he begins looking up more words. This is a double edged sword; he can’t talk to me while he is researching, yet I can’t claim ignorance once he has found what he is looking for. Long, like 40 minutes worth, story short, MCN wants to know when I was returning to the USA and if I would be coming back to Italia anytime soon. I of course say that no, I don’t think I will be coming back. He proceeds to pull out a pen and paper and wants my phone number in the states so he can call me and fly me back to Italia to stay with him at his house. He says we will only eat and sleep at his house, nothing else. Yeah, except for those weird little hand gestures he kept using along side eat and sleep. I ask if my fiancé is invited too, he shakes his head and acts like he doesn’t even hear the word fidanzato. There was no way on god’s green earth I was giving up any of my digits to this guy; Summer had a different plan. As he is telling me his stop is next, thank god, and he really needs my phone number I write down the following contact information: Summer 410-582-0883. Haaaaaa, wish I could see the look on the person’s face, who inherited my Glen Burnie phone number, when Mr. Casa Nostra calls asking for Summer.
The train stops, MCN shakes my hand and proceeds to give me the double cheeked kiss goodbye. After he is off the train and has reached through the open window to shake my hand again, the guy sitting next to me looks over at me and says in very clear English, “your name is not Summer, that was not your phone number, and you are one very tricky girl.” Nicely played, Me/Summer!

Alberobello

What a great little town! Alberobello sits in the middle of Puglia surrounded by old olive and fig farms crisscrossed by low stone walls. Also in the countryside and in particular the town, are buildings called Trulli. They are made of stacked stone and have cone shaped roofs. The original ones do not have any mortar in them; they are just stacked stone. This was done in the 1400’s so that when the tax collectors came through, the people could just pull down the houses and not have to pay the tax for a roofed building. When the tax inspector was gone, they just stacked the stones back up. The newer trullo, and by newer we are talking 1700-1800, have white washed walls and spires on the top of the stacked cones. Each different spire has significance. Some mean peasants, others represent the pope, and still others signify royalty and nobility. Many of the cone roofs also have “magic” symbols painted on them for luck. They use lime to paint various symbols of the zodiac and early religious symbols. In Alberobello many of the trulli are still lived in and lots of them now have souvenir shops and restaurants; it has officially become a World Heritage site. I must have taken 200 photos in this town; it was just so amazing to see a part of the hillside covered in Trulli.

The people in Alberobello are some of the nicest that I have met. Some speak English and those that don’t have no problems working through broken Italian and hand gestures to make sure you are perfectly happy. I found the best little restaurant off the Piazza del Popolo. It only has 7 tables, the chef, a waitress, and the owner. The kitchen is open so you watch the chef make everything right there in front of you. These 3 people become my best friends while I was there. They insisted on choosing what I would eat for each course as well as the wine; they chose very well. The pasta was orecchiette with tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, basil, and freshly made local cheese. Next came roast pork that was rubbed with salt, pepper, and olive oil, followed by local greens steamed and served with fresh lemons and salt. And finally, dolci was a fresh fruit salad with a caffe macchiato. It was by far one of my favorite dinners of my time in Italy. I also met an amazing girl who makes jewelry. Her family has lived in Alberobello for generations and has always made the “magic” symbols out of gold and silver. She took me into her trullo and explained the set up and how they used to look before being updated. She also told me about a great park, called Bosco Salva, that winds it way through ancient woods, old olive farms, and past seriously old and dilapidated trulli. I spent an entire day hiking through the park and fell in love with the olive groves. In addition to owning a vineyard in Tuscany and a villa on the sea, I want to have a Trullo in Puglia surrounded by old olive groves and the beautiful red soil.

beautiful old olive tree

olives and vineyards. Photo taken from random pizzaria on a country road!

from same pizzaria

old trullo used to store farm equip.

old olive farm near the Bosco Salva

old trulli outside of town on the way to Bosco Salva

olive groves that produce the most delicious olives served with drinks at any cafe.

the hillside full of trulli

magical symbol on the roof

more trulli

a lived in trulli

another live in one.

pretty!

the hillside

bella!!!!

Matera

To finish my tour of the south, I went to Matera which is in the province of Basilicata, in the arch of the boot. Again, I took about 200 pictures, but in this case photos just don’t do this town justice. If you have seen the movie “Passion of the Christ” you have actually seen some great footage of Matera. The movie was shot here because the area of the Sassi looks so much like ancient Jerusalem.

This town is built into the cliff walls on two ravines. There is the city center, which is relatively new, the 1200’s, and then the two Sassi regions which date back some 7000 years ago. The Sassi are a collection of cave dwellings carved right into the walls of the cliffs. The rock here is called tufo and is actually really soft and workable. Matera’s cave dwellings are some of the oldest inhabited human settlements in the world. Until the 1950’s the Sassi were still largely occupied by peasants. The cave houses did not have running water or electricity and were a symbol of abject poverty. The city center, which is on top of the plateau, is set up so all of the buildings have their back to the two sassi, an attempt to ignore how poor the peasants were. To reach the sassi you have to go down steps on the edge of the main piazzas and you really do feel like you are crossing into a different kind of place. In the 1950’s the government came into Matera and forcibly moved the peasants out of the sassi and into government built housing in the newly created suburbs. They did this because they deemed the unsanitary conditions of the cave dwellings to be unacceptable. Frequently, as many as 12 people along with their chickens, a horse, and a pig all lived in 3 rooms carved into the rock. There are a couple of museums that are still set up with the original furniture and tools of a typical family living in the sassi. Apparently, residents of the sassi didn’t beg for money, they begged for quinine to fight the raging malaria in the sassi. The infant mortality rate was 50%. It is absolutely unbelievable to think that people still lived this way in the 1950’s in Italy.

The sassi has now become a World Heritage site and has seen a lot of renovations. People again occupy the cave dwellings with modern updates of electricity and running water. Many of the old caves have become restaurants, hotels, and shops. My hotel was actually an old Neolithic temple carved right into the cliff. We are talking about 3000 years old! The place was amazing. In the Sassi Caveoso, many of the cave dwellings are still abandoned and you can actually go into them, or at least I did. There are also about 150 chiese rupestri, or rock churches in the two sassi districts. About 7 of these churches still have some of the 11th century frescoes on their carved out walls. While standing outside the entrance to one of these churches, along the edge of the cliff, you can look across the ravine to the Murgia plateau which is the site where they filmed the crucifixion scene from the “Passion”. It really does leave you speechless.

The people in Matera were very friendly as well. I met two Canadian women on the train to Matera who were also staying at my hotel. We had drinks one night and dinner the next at a great little local Osteria. It only had 6 tables outside and the chef, who I’m pretty sure drank his way through the night, came to each table and decided what you should eat. He spoke a combination of English and Italian that really made no sense when put together, but his motions and sound effects somehow gave it all context. He was hilarious and the food and wine were outstanding!

Lobby of my hotel

Entrance to the hotel

View from a rock church to one of the Sassi

Sassi Caveoso

the plateau where crucifixion scene was filmed

the sassi

main room of a cave dwelling w/original furniture

view from the area where horse & pig were kept into the main room

the deepest room where wine was kept. Thermometer read 50 degrees.

room where horse & pig lived

main room. Parents & kids slept in same bed.

occuppied cave house

cave house

caves across the ravine carved to house sheep

abandoned cave house

Chiese Rupestri

across ravine from sassi, the jazzi for sheep

Come si dici . . . nevermind

This past week has been something else. By Wednesday afternoon I was too hot, too frustrated with language classes, and disenchanted with Roma only to finally hit a groove and really start to fall in love with this city. While the Italian class was completely disorganized and not what I had hoped, that was the consensus of all in my class, it has helped me to understand much of more of what I read and hear. I also learned some very important curse words/phrases. In keeping with my nature, I can’t remember how to say “how much does that cost” but I can rattle a litany of insults and dirty words. Well worth the money I spent!

More importantly, I met some really great people who have become true friends. I have had fantastic dinners and drinks in hidden piazzas, along the river, and at the Trastevere festival all week long. One thing I have learned about Rome is that its inhabitants do not believe in sleeping. Every night begins with dinner from about 9:30 -12:00, then out for drinks. When I called it a night at 3:30 last night, everyone else continued to dance and drink until 6:30am. Unbelievable!

After dragging ourselves out of bed this morning, Naz and I went to the Trastevere flea market, all day. This thing is crazy big. It has everything from toilet parts to perfume, to antiques, to flowers, to cheese. It is seriously unbelievable. I found some great stuff and now have to figure out how to get it home. I have a feeling UPS is going to make a bundle off me.

So, tomorrow I’m getting out of Rome for a week and heading south. I’m spending a few days on the sea at Gallipoli on the very southern tip of Italy. Then I’m headed to Alberobello to see the domed Trulli houses, followed by Matera where “Passion of the Christ” was filmed. I’m pretty excited about those two nights since I booked into a hotel that is built into the sassi, which are the cliff dwellings.

I’m traveling light over the next week, so I’m not taking my laptop. Unless my hotels have internet access, I won’t be updating, and definitely won’t post any more pictures, until I return to Roma on Monday 7/30.

So with that said, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my sister on 7/24, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to Angela & Cary on the same day, and have a GREAT REUNION to you St. Maria Goretti alums, I’m sorry I will miss it!

My neighborhood, Piazza Santa Maria

near my apt.

my neighborhood

a going away gift for Damon

yes, Naz & I are nasty!

Maurizio, our teacher on left and Louie, a student from Turkey

Julia, student from Germany

Naz and I

Naz & Damon, it went downhill from there!