DAY 86

Wednesday 5 October 2011

We had eggs for breakfast, then began our quest for the castle Charles had researched, located in a dramatic ocean setting. It took muck longer to drive there than we expected, so we arrived at closing time.

Street art on the way

Rather than pay for 15 minutes of looking, we walked around the perimeter just as the castle lights were coming on, which gave the building a completely different effect. Two women sharing a cigarette on the rocks told us the best restaurant to eat at in town was Trattoria De Mario. We drove there post haste.

Already seated, (and the only other people in the place), were an English and Dutch couple, Vick and Christina. We asked them to join us and ordered our first Italian pizza! Nicole and Charles shared a vegetable pizza, and Dian had a seafood combination plate. It was fun to hear about their travels by sailboat and their intention to continue for at least another year.

We drove them back to the marina where their boat was docked, and we parked nearby, seeing that another campervan was already there.

DAY 85

Tuesday 4 October 2011

We woke up to barking dogs at Camp Vascellero. Dian set up the hammock and did a load of laundry by hand, with the help of Rick Steves' universal clothesline. (AHHH) We had yoghurt and cereal for breakfast, then while Charles caught up on e-mails, Dian and Nicole took much needed showers. (We gave them back).

Around 3PM we walked 50 meters to the beach through a grove of eucalyptus which, as it turns out, was a paddock for a lone horse. The nearly deserted beach was strewn with beautiful oval rocks that we collected for painting. Charles and Dian got in the water while Nicole created drip sand sculptures.

Agave plant next to the beach

Back at the van, Dian and Nicole saw a frog, but Charles' adventure with a cat, bird and dogs was even more thrilling: The bird cage crashed to the floor in the lobby of the camps reception, the bird flew out, doors were frantically closed, while three small dogs tried to prove their hunting prowess. Fortunately Charles and the owner trapped the bird in the corner and order was restored. Charles was the only eyewitness that the cat, not the dogs, was to blame.

After receiving good advice from Vascellero staff member, Teresa, as to where we should head next, Charles joined Nicole and Dian for a delicious dinner that Nicole had prepared of salad (garnished with David's sun dried tomato and basil oil mix), vegetable soup, local cheese, and Anna's famous potato bread. After dinner, Nicole slammed the others in Scrabble (using Dian's handmade board for the first time), but soothed their wounds with her Nutella tortillas.

Sadly, we did not get this size

DAY 84

Monday 3 October 2011

Before leaving Greg and Fiorella’s, we took some shots of Charles and Fiorella in their respective John Lennon shirts, and they loaded us with fresh mint and a blessed candle. Since they were already planning to go to town we followed them in, and they offered to take us to breakfast. We agreed, but before anything else happened we had to buy some of Anna the baker’s onion, and pepper flavored biscuits and other goodies for the road.

Anna the baker. Photo by Dian

Walking to their favorite breakfast spot we saw a storefront of Daisy Duck apparel, and while the storeowner (and all its patrons) gawked at Dian after Greg told them who she was, Nicole tried on one of the sweatshirts. It fit, and we got it! (Can this count as a tax write-off?)

The famous gelato joint

Alas, the restaurant was closed, as was their second choice! It was with a heavy heart (yeah, right) that we had gelato for breakfast at a nationally recognized spot. We said our final goodbyes and watched Ceglie Messapica shrink into the distance.

After a bit of driving we found Camp Vascellero for 12€ a night with hot showers and free WiFi. Amen and goodnight!

Did we mention the lyrics were translated (by Greg) into Italian?

DAY 83

Sunday 2 October 2011

A slow-starting day that ended spectacularly. Morning and early afternoon were devoted to scraping out the insides of cactus pears, a prickly delight ignored by most of the locals (probably because it's labor-intensive) but oh so delicious and healthy when crushed into a pulpy juice. Then the phrase we'd heard before that we always jumped on: "Want to go to the boat?"

Greg and Margarita

When we arrived at the marina not far away we met their friend Yolanda, a Dutch woman living in the area for some time, a healer associate of Fiorella's. We all dinghy-ed out to Fiorella and Greg's beautiful sailboat "13 Moons" and were just settling in when Yolanda got a call: it was her friend and fellow expat Nederlander Margarita, with whom she spoke earlier in the day and mentioned she was going to the local marina, and there she was, standing on the dock after driving six hours from Rome! Greg of course dinghy-ed over and added her to the crew, and a lively addition she was, an old seafarer (her parents gave her a boat when she was 16 and said, take off, have fun) who pitched right in on boat duties and was full of good stories in three languages. Between her and Yolanda, likewise delightful, and of course the Dutch family we traveled with for five days, our estimation of the Dutch both domestic and abroad was way up there.

Yolanda

After some lively renditions of sea chanties (well, Sloop John B, What shall We Do With a Drunken Sailor and others), which Greg joined in on solidly because his mother taught them all to him, the Italiano ladies eventually departed for massage work and the trip back to Rome. Around 6 PM we got a wonderful surprise from Greg: he came back and took us out on the open sea, a thrill on a boat like that, and we spent a couple of hours pitching in (Dian was given the privilege and responsibility of the tiller and did a stellar job) and just enjoying the gently rolling sea and the sunset light fading to gorgeous colors over the horizon.

We then surprised Fiorella with a shirt Dian had illustrated of John Lennon with lyrics from "Imagine" written on front. It would be difficult to put into words her reaction, so here is a photo series to explain:

(We think she liked it)

 
After we returned, we were treated to a concert put on by Fiorella using seven crystal bowls. We found ourselves meditating to the ethereal resonance of these instruments. She is a master, and one of the first to learn how to play them.

Yolanda stayed for a dinner of lentil soup and fresh bread. That night we slept soundly.

A fireworks display on the water

DAY 82

Saturday 1 October 2011

We got up by 7:30 to drive the van into town before 9 which was when the mechanic would be open for business. Ceglie Messapica is only about 10 minutes from Greg and Fiorella’s place out in the country. Puglia is known for its old cone-shaped domiciles (trulli) and many are whitewashed and renovated.

Making cactus fruit juice.

At The Peace Garden, as they refer to it, we each were given a task (per our request ) and the novelty of picking cactus fruit with fireplace tongs or collecting walnuts from the ground made the chores easy to accomplish. Our breakfast under the pine tree was espresso, tea and best of all biscotti from Anna’s bakery. (She has the space directly below Greg and Fiorella’s apartment/office in town). We learned about each of our Mayan calendar aspects and enjoyed reveling in the synchronicity of life. All while taking cactus splinters out of our hands with tweezers.

Before going to the harbor town of Otsuni to visit their boat, we picked up the van in Ceglie (which had received a new fuel line as the old one had a small hole, and the charge was only $40!) We hoped that would finally solve our spraying fuel problem, and it seemed to.  We bought picnic provisions of prosciutto, local cheese called cacao cavallo and beer to mix with lemon soft drinks.

Charles and Greg going to the sail boat in Greg's electric-powered skiff.

We connected with the harbor master on duty through Dian’s girl scout knot tying skills and he gave her a nice piece of rope to keep practicing with after demonstrating a few of his own. Greg ferried our quintet to their beautiful 32 foot sailboat in an inflatable dinghy with electric motor (not gasoline putt-putt -- another of their live clean and simple innovations they hope the locals will catch on to) and after a reading of Dian’s book Neptune’s Tavern (now we've heard it in Dutch and Italian!) everyone chowed (no pun intended) down then took a nap to the gentle lull of the waves. Since Fiorella had an appointment we opted not to leave the harbor for a sail although we heard some great stories about their harrowing adventure in a storm off Corsica.

Outside the Peace Garden

Gettin' artsy with the trulli

Back at the ranch (which measures six hectares), we filled  two giant buckets with walnuts after Greg climbed the tree and shook the branches raining nuts on Charles and Dian. Their dogs actually crack the walnuts open and eat the meat.

Prehistoric bone?? "No, just a rock," Greg said.

When dinner time rolled around we were delighted to have pasta with homemade pesto, olives from their trees, a chard-like green and tomatoes, with Anna’s bread curls and homemade wine. It don’t get better than that! Nicole and Dian were requested to play some music, which they did and that was the perfect capper to a lovely day – our first full day in Italy.

DAY 81

Friday 30 September 2011

One last kypseli-keepsake from Greece

After a long and arduous journey on the ferry to Brindisi, losing one of our cell phones was not what we wanted to start the day with. It was first realized that the phone was missing when we were all in the car ready to exit the boat, and though Nicole ran back to the spot where we had slept, her search was in vain.

View from their city apartment

A customs officer mutely handed us our passports back after inspecting them and we were glad to be on our way to see Greg and Fiorella. It was a pretty drive to their town of Ceglie Messapica and we decided to stop at a small cafe for coffee and croissants. Our friends were on their way to meet us, so we explored the city during that time and walked its narrow, cobblestone streets, admiring its church and castle. Our timing was just in sync with the town's siesta, so we had no choice but to window shop in all the closed stores.

Our car, their car

Fresh cactus juice from Greg and Fiorella's plants

A customs officer mutely handed us our passports back after inspecting them and we were glad to be on our way to see Greg and Fiorella. It was a pretty drive to their town of Ceglie Messapica and we decided to stop at a small cafe for coffee and croissants. Our friends were on their way to meet us, so we explored the city during that time and walked its narrow, cobblestone streets, admiring its church and castle. Our timing was just in sync with the town's siesta, so we had no choice but to window shop in all the closed stores.

An old stone wall expert working for Greg and Fiorella explained he had "****ed his back"
 because of all the years he spent bending over and lifting stones

We were met by Greg who took us to their apartment in the city, heated year round by the 150 year old bakery below. The smell was excruciatingly tempting. Saying goodbye to the city, we left for their home out in the country and got a tour of the grounds and home, which were earth-friendly to the core, "Everything has a purpose," Fiorella said. After enjoying fresh, homemade cactus fruit juice, we settled into one of the trulis.

truli-style

We went into town for dinner, and while Greg and Fiorella took care of some business at their apartment we walked through the town again, but with all stores open and welcoming. We had been needing a lighter for our portable gas stove, so we stopped into a store with assorted sundries. There were a bunch of great ceramic plates and bowls with a folk-art style rooster on each piece, including a solitary bowl which, after some deliberating, we purchased! We told the storekeeper we were from LA and his eyes widened. We let him know the bowl and all its counterparts were beautiful, and at the very end he threw in a matching milk pitcher, no cost. He asked us to say hello to LA for him, which we promised we would.

Style is not lacking for Italians, for everyone out that night, young and old, was his own Dapper Dan.

It was a curious thing we saw sitting in the piazza: two old men seemed to be walking right to us, but just as they came upon our bench, they turned on their heels and walked in the opposite direction. We looked at each other, wondering what in the world we had done to offend them, but just when they had reached the other side of the square they turned around again and walked back in our direction. Looking around the entire square we noticed other pairs of men doing the same thing, and it dawned on us: they were doing “laps.” We told Greg and Fiorella about it later, and laughing they said it’s a common thing the men do, in their town only, on that piazza only.

"Lap men"

Our friends’ first two restaurant choices were closed, but we happily went to a place they lovingly called “Grandma’s Kitchen” where we had an antipasto extravaganza. Ordering two of this 12+ dish option for five people was more than enough, so much so that we didn’t even order a main course. But had a cornucopia of local liqueurs instead (this included walnut liqueur and limoncello, among others). It was at times difficult to concentrate on dinner while a steamy soap opera played loudly on the TV behind us, but the food and company was so exquisite that we somehow managed.

A woman waiting

We could have rolled home for how full we were, but for the sake of time we drove.

NOTE: Sleeping on a belly full of Italian food almost guarantees a great night’s sleep.