Five minutes and one euro north, via train, and we arrived at our home for the night, Polignano a Mare. I got the tickets and wrote down departure times for tomorrow's trip to Lecce, then we walked out front to find a rickshaw waiting for us.
This was great fun, as we have never ridden in one of these ubiquitous bicycle carts. Our guesthouse, Santo Stefano, sent it to fetch us up.
It turns out that many movies have been filmed here because of "the typical" look of the place. In fact the main piazza was closed due to another film going on right now. But, not to worry, our rickshaw was allowed right around the barriers and we rode through the middle of the set. I am sure everyone was wondering if we were in the movie.
The answer is, unfortunately, no.
However, we got to see two very famous Italian movie stars. I'd name but, but, well... you know.
I don't know who they are.
The Santo Stefano is right at the edge of the old town, by the water. We had the Azzurra room, our biggest yet. It is a cool place, all thick stone walls and thick beamed ceilings, built in 1500.
The stairs up are uneven height, made of marble, with the worn down dip in the middle from 500 years of use.
We dropped our bags and got a great recommendation for the “...awarded best in the world, you know, at the Paris world ice cream championship?” gelato at Caruso’s.
It was really great.
The whole town, like Monopoli, is built right up and along the sea cliffs. One little nudge and you could send whole buildings tumbling over, sixty to a hundred feet down into the sea. So, we just sort of walked along, stopping out at the view balconies to take in the overview of the town, the ocean and the cliffs.
The cliffs are eroding, in some places there are caves all the way through a point of land. How many more years until that chunk falls into the ocean?
So I got to thinking about that. Perhaps you don't want the hotel that is right at that last inch of the cliff... (We are in a block - safe!)
Perhaps the dead-end alleys that stop at the metal fences; those so called viewing balconies... perhaps those are the places where chunks of cliff fell in?
This makes it all the more exciting and dramatic.
The town is cut down the middle, like a pie with a chunk out of it. A river drains into the ocean here, and so there is a bridge over the valley, and a beach where the water drains into the sea.
In the old walled town, the streets are so narrow, the courtyards shared, so in one little cul-de-sac there might be four, six, eight homes crammed right next to each other. Tall and narrow, you would really get to know your neighbors.
Even outside the old center, on the neighborhood streets, it is just place after place, balcony next to balcony, facing to your neighbor across the street. Everyone has their laundry out, flapping in the breeze, and if you don't have a balcony (bottom floor) you just put your stuff out on the sidewalk to dry. It is nothing to see a lady in a robe, towel around her head, leaning on her balcony for a smoke, talking to the guy up one floor and over, who is watching the kids play on the street below, and someone on the balcony across pops their head out and tosses what? An orange? A pack of sugar? across to a guy who needs it.
You do not live alone, you can not have a lonely life here in Italy.
We met two ladies with a new puppy. Francesca and Maria let us hold the little wiggly Lila, which Gail especially loved.
We had a great dinner at local Restaurant Porta Picc. It was back in an alley, and we ate inside, out of the wind. Because it was in the local neighborhood, there was no dramatic view, but there was a barrel-vaulted, stone roof, with candles lit so that it was very warm and cozy. There were mostly Italian families there, a couple French and one (maybe) Russian couple who ate like they had just come out of the gulag.
I mean, we sat for three hours, THREE HOURS enjoying our simple meal and litre of wine, and they had just finished the appertivos, a bowl of mussels and salad, and were starting in on the primi (pasta) course and their THIRD bottle of wine. Amazing to watch. I bet they were there another three hours.
Next morning I was up early, out for a walk, and just freezing in the chill wind when suddenly!
There is a café open!
Oh yea!
So I got a cappuccino, at 5:15 no less!
Now I love this town!
The sun felt so great on my back, the slant of the light under the clouds, the sharp outline of the houses, perched on the cliff. It is a good time of day to be out walking.
It has been really cool and windy lately, the famous mistrial winds. Gail is wondering if we are really in Italy, or perhaps Greenland?
I am glad to be back in the land of good, simple and inexpensive food and wine (our total meal last night was €35 for two, morning cappuccino is €1,20, a cafè is €0,80, litre of the local vino about €5.)