Oh the Places I'll Go

 For five days in February, I participated in a Road Scholar tour of Puglia, as we spell the Italian region of Apulia in English.  Apulia is long and narrow, the heel of Italy’s boot, the land between the Ionian and Adriatic Seas.  We explored only the southern portions of the region and dipped into neighboring Basilicata one day.  There is much to see and enjoy in Apulia—beaches, low mountains, beautiful cities, and historic sites.  I have described these is other posts. Archaeologists have uncovered evidence of Messapi peoples who lived in southern Puglia eight or more centuries BC and before either the Greeks or Romans began to build their cities and walls.   Many cities in Italy, and indeed Europe, have uncovered or preserved Roman-built structures.   Another ancient people settled in the mountain caves in what is now the city of Matera.   These rock cities, or sassi, are the only continuously inhabited dwellings dating back for at least n...

February 8, 2022 According to our Road Scholar guide, Puglia (Apulia) is the chief producer of olive oil in Italy.  I confirmed her claim via Google which shared this official statistical report from 2021:  "Apulia is the undisputed leading producer of olive oil with over 208,000 tons annually. Calabria and Sicily come next in terms of output with 53,000 and 34,000 tons, respectively. Apulia counted the highest number of olive oil mills, with 904 sites." Lucky for us, a visit to one of those olive oil mills was included in our itinerary--Masseria Brancati.  Our host and guide, Corrado, is the seventh generation of his family operating this mill with trees that are up to 2,000 years old.   A bitterly cold wind was blowing the day we visited--the only day on our trip during which we had "bad" weather.  We were glad to be able to go inside this underground mill which contains evidence of the production tools used by the Romans and later by medieval farmers....

Our Road Scholar group visited the charming seaside town of Otranto on Monday (2-7-22) and the equally charming Locorotondo on Tuesday (2-8-22).  Like most Italian towns I have visited over the years, Otranto and Locorotondo have old towns, surrounded by city walls and containing defensive battlements which protected the residents hundreds and even thousands of years ago.  Otranto sits on the Adriatic Sea.   On a clear day we are told, you can see the Albanian Mountains.   Even though the day was cloudy, we were amazed by the color and clarity of the water. From 1991 thousands of Albanians, fearing civil war at the end of the communist dictatorship and seeking a better life, sailed from Albania to Italy.   They were not welcomed and many either perished or were sent back to Albania.    One particularly tragic event occurred in 1997 near Otranto when an Italian patrol ship intercepted a small ship carrying about 100 refugees.   The ships collided...

  Sunday, February 6, 2022 Lecce was once described as “the Florence of the South,” and its lovely sand-colored buildings and an abundance of baroque architecture may deserve such a sobriquet.  Like many other old European towns, the cobblestone streets are narrow with houses built contiguously to one another.  This photo was taken at dusk while a light rain was falling and no one but me appeared to be out and about.   Because this is Italy, the Romans were here centuries ago, but evidence of them was largely erased, only to be uncovered around 1900 when a new bank building was constructed.  The remains of both an amphitheater and a theater have been partially unearthed and now stand between the more modern structures of the town. If you look at a map of Italy, you will see that it is turned somewhat on its side, so that the heel of its boot shape points eastward toward Albania.  There are only seventy kilometers of the Adriatic Sea between Pugl...