I am up early again, but today there is a coffee maker provided in our room.
I have the doors to the balcony thrown open wide, the gentle breeze drifts in before the not-so-gentle thundering of the bells of St. Matteo shake the room.
Seven aye-em.
Gail sleeps right through it.
I take the time to go up on the roof terrace to watch the sun rise over the hundred churches.
I read and write until Gail wakes, then we head to the CinCin Bar for breakfast.
Today we want to figure out how to get to Otranto. I hear it is a neat town, far south along the coast; rumour has it there are eight hundred skeletons in town.
This should be an adventure.
We go to the station. The mainline TrenItalia does not go there, so we are taking the Regionale Sud-Est.
The ticket guy makes it sound easy, Lecce to Maglie, Maglie to Otranto.
Well... almost.
Our little three car train sets out. It is a slow, hang out the windows train.
Literally.
I hang out the window to watch life roll by.
The conductor had us switch train cars at Galugnano, then at the next station we were uncoupled and dropped, left there on the tracks.
Surprise!
Now our one car train goes a different way and we end up in Maglie, where the six of us are kicked out to wait for a bus.
Two are girls who seem to live here and know what they are doing. There is a pissed off British couple with luggage, bitching about "...train... said nothing about a bus..."
We hang out with the girls.
Nope.
Another one.
Not yet.
Finally a bus pulls in, the driver beckons to us, girls board, so do we.
Turns out they are working on the tracks, so a shuttle bus makes up the difference.
Thirty minutes later our fifteen minute bus ride ends and we are there. Only took about two hours fifteen if you count the wait time when we bought the tickets, an hour thirty had we known the schedule.
We took the street straight out from the station, cut down a walkway next to a small grocery, and in five minutes we were on a small, but well kept beach, looking up at a sort of castle wall complex across the small bay. We headed that way.
We were looking for a place for some water, food and wine (not in that order) but unfortunately for me I led us through the main city gate, right into the shopping district.
Crap.
Eventually I tore Gail away from the windows and store fronts, and we ended up at the Blu Bar with mezzo litros of vino, water and food (in that exact order).
I took a chance and got a great misto carpacci di pesce, which was very thin slices of raw tuna, swordfish, salmon, and something "extra" which was maybe octopus or squid.
Whatever.
It was fantastic. A nice surprise.
Gail got a "Blu Bar" which she absolutely loved. Hot, fresh, home made bread with tomatoes, mozzarella, and arugula made into a sandwich.
It was a great break.
The only really really sad part was the girl, softy singing soft jazz versions of American rock. Imagine Michael Jackson's Billie Jean, or the Stones' Lets Spend The Night Together at half speed, one acoustic guitar and soft brush snare.
Ugh. Double ugh.
We walked. By the castle, through the streets, out a gate in the wall and back in, up the hill and then we found the cathedral.
Cathedral of St. Mary of the Annunciation, built in the 1100s and reworked in 1480 and 1674.
For all that work, it really is not impressive at all to look at.
We looked inside, it's OK.
I am really struck by the cool ceiling. It looks like a sort of wood and gold inlay.
The famous feature of this church is the huge tile floor.
The entire cathedral is tiled with mosaics, pictures of animals, people, the tree of life, sin, salvation, old testament and apocryphra, and something noted as “…the chivalrous cycles and medieval bestiary…”
Maybe that quote explains it all.
It is kind of the fantastical Bible story done in a fanciful way. I mean, the animals are cartoonishly done, and many of them are just plain weird. Forget unicorns, what about man-dogs and eleph-igers?
A monk named Pantaleone spent two years, 1163-1165, “…during the reign of William the Bad…”
You just cannot make this stuff up.
Let me start over. William the Bad is king, Pantaloene decides to try his hand at mosaics, and he has a firm grasp on the bible, but not so much on science and nature. So now there is this mosaic floor.
While I am pondering all this, Gail makes a discovery.
She found a set of stairs leading down... to the crypt with 800 skeletons?
Nope.
Nice crypt, however. Built in 1088. I really like the half finished, or half uncovered frescoes painted on the walls.
Back up, there is this one side chapel we haven't gone in yet... looks uninspiring...
And suddenly, there they are: the 800 skeletons. Or maybe 800 skulls. Give or take some. I mean seriously, who counted.
But there they are.
They have a name: “The Eight Hundred Martyrs of Otranto.” Interestingly enough, historians have doubts whether they were even really martyred at all.
But it makes a good story.
Besides, hey: skulls.
Cool.
But let’s not teach all this in school, in place of science, hey?
After that it was just touring and looking, until we went back to the train station to catch the 17:06 bus, to the train, to get home to Lecce.
The trip home was fast, hit the bus on time, drop off, track two, board and go.
We were back home at 18:30.
This time round it was us helping the confused tourists, and others looked at Gail and me to see where we would go and when.
All in all it was a fine adventure.
I like riding in the front seat of the busses; watching the faces of the oncoming drivers as we make those wide wide turns, feeling like we are certainly going to hit that building, run over that scooter, when suddenly we are pulled back from the edge.
You know those "unprotected left turns" we all do, all the time? Where you wait patiently with your left blinker on, until all traffic has gone by. Then you look again, turn left.
That, my friends, is a joke in Italy.
Left turn?
If I am there a tenth of a second before you, I am going.
From our side: Hang on!
From their side: Slam on the brakes goddamnsonofabitch!!!
Otranto was nice, but one afternoon was enough time for us. I suppose if we were there overnight we would hit the beach, but it just didn't have the right "feel" to us. Nothing bad, just not an overnight place for us.
With a hundred churches to choose from, I am searching for (and will post, if I find them) Chiesa Pammy, Chiesa George and Dennis, Chiesa Richard, (just for you, buddy!) Chiesa Carl, Martha, Steve, Kathy... Saints Aura and Katie, Shawnee, Scotti and LoRaine, and for the real saint, Chiesa Gail.
Anybody else want in on the Saint list? Let me know, quick, and I'll look for your Chiesa.
Not me though. I sure ain't no saint, nor will I claim any shred of saintliness.
We walk past the statue of St. Oronzo, whom I henceforth dub Saint Otto, and give a nod to Irene, Teresa, and Giovanni on our way to dinner at a little wine bar called il Banco, where we had a plate of tapas, two glasses of wonderful wine. All in all, a heavenly meal.
When all is said and done, the lesson today is that you just can't be in a hurry to move around Southern Italy.