Unhandy as a building shape

As I said last blog, we were kinda happy to move on from Metaponto. Lack of life in the town made for a lack of life in us. Up we get nice and early in the morning once again because we have the most reliably early alarm clock. One place I had on my list of must-sees was Alberobello. We got there at a good time, parked the car, and were approached by an Italian asking us to interpret the parking sign… Even when I said I-a speak-a englisha, all I got was “no problem, what does that parking sign mean?”

Alberobello’s attraction is its Trulli. Awesome smallish buildings made out of stone, usually circular in shape and with dry stone roofs. Their walls are rendered and painted white, while the roofs are left natural, apart from some which have magic symbols painted on them. They are freaking amazing and people still live in them. The doorways are fairly low, and circular is really unhandy as a building shape, but they have their charm and I may have to build next to my round tower. I think Puglia must have had too many stones or something, so it made sense to build houses out of them. Certainly there are also a lot of stone fences about – enough to make you think you are on Craggy Island… with olive and citrus trees as well as plenty of cocaine – I mean raisins!

Wandering about these stone marvels, we found a few pastries of course as well as a playground. I got all misty eyed about my grown up daughter climbing onto the play equipment and going down the slide with no assistance whatsoever. I had better be buying that mountain bike for her for Christmas.

We drove on towards the Adriatic coast as we were set on another beach town for accommodation. This time we didn’t book ahead as we wanted to scope out the place before we committed and make sure there was some atmosphere. We got a bit tetchy again trying to negotiate the bigger cities which all seem to have essential roads blocked off. Managed to get out of Monopoli and were relieved to find a nice place up the road where we could find lunch. It was probably a bit fancy for us, but we made do. Stayed in a swanky hotel as well, right on the beach. It was blowing a bit of a gale but, so we put Anya down for a nap and caught up on blogging and organised the final places of our holiday!

Made ourselves swim in a shallow rock pool and felt better for it, but it still wasn’t great. Actually sat out for dinner in Polignono a Mare and really enjoyed…. Pizza! Anya had her first carousel ride which we think possibly maybe she enjoyed, but we weren’t real sure. We should probably just give her some gravel next time. The highlight for me was gelato again for dessert and eating it in the massive town square/piazza where it was totally humming. It was exactly what we needed after our ghost town experiences. Anya even got a kiss from a 7ish year old Italian boy!

Sunday the next day so breakfast was not until 8:30. Sounds rather civilised until you remember that we get up at around 6:00 and have limited space and supplies to keep a toddler entertained. That particular hotel also had paper thin walls, so we got out at first light and walked the coastline/beaches for an hour or so. Found a real gem of a beach, so we had to go back on our way out of town after breakfast for a dip! By the time we got there with bathers and a full belly of croissants, and custard filled pastries we were surprised to see Italians lining the inlet with their fold up chairs, towels and budgie smugglers. Anya had heaps of fun doing sandy things and playing hide and seek with the local cats. Dogs are still cool, but cats are the best.