Puglia - the Heel of Italy

Puglia is a vast sun drenched region which stretches from the 'spur' of Italy down to the heel. It's dry, hot and particularly busy at this time of the year. No, in fact scrub 'particularly' - it was exceptionally busy!! But I guess we should have figured that travelling anywhere in Southern Italy in August (when the whole of Italy, plus many of its neighbours are on holiday!) was going to be sheer madness...

The maddening crowds in Alberobello were quite sympathetic compared with what lay in store for us, but somewhere amongst all of this - most notably in the small inland towns we managed to find some respite, a quiet corner in the heat of the day (now that's another story!) and many a good gelato...

Here are some of our highlights...

OSTUNI

A wee detour en route to Lecce, Ostuni is a beacon of white washed buildings draped across a hill overlooking the dry, olive tree covered plains that marks the end of Truilli country and the start of the Salento peninsula - otherwise known to you and me as the heel of Italy.

Ostuni - where you need your sunglasses on to combat the glare

The view out over endless olive groves to the Adriatic

Enjoying the view

Wandering around the neighbourhood

It was also the home of our very first gelati, which we enjoyed whilst taking a stroll through the atmospheric streets and alleyways of the old town. And can I just say that the yoghurt flavoured gelato absolutely rocks!

Falling all over ourselves in anticipation of the long awaited gelati!!

LEECE

The university town of Lecce was one of our top destinations on the Salento peninsula, famous for it's incredibly 'madcap' Baroque architecture. So madcap infact that it's given birth to its very own style of Baroque, known as Lecce Baroque. According to Lonely Planet, one 18th century traveller of note thought it the most beautiful city in Italy, while another - one Marchese Grimaldi thought that the facade of the Basilica di Santa Croce looked like a lunatic's nightmare...

Make what you will of it, but it certainly is different. To me, rather like an intricately yet grotesquely sculptured ice cream cake. Unfortunately we couldn't manage to capture an image of the entire church in one photo, so here's a series of frames of the detail. What do you think??

Basilica di Santa Croce

Unlucky fellow

Supporting this church isn't just a man's job

They've even brought in the beasts

A lunatic's nightmare?

Great town to spend a morning, and given its student population, made for some interesting grafitti. Having just read a book on Berlusconi, Eric was quite taken with this one. Sometimes the most poignant things can be said most with the most little words.

Brief but to the point

Gig advertisement

Nice touch of Roman antiquity

OTRANTO

The last town of note on the 'heel' was Otranto, which once enjoyed fame as Italy's major port to the Orient. Today however, a very picturesque walled town beside the sea, with little evidence of its previous glory - with the exception of course of the 11th century Norman cathedral...

Perving at the locals seems to be becoming a favourite pasttime for these two

Pleasure boat madness

Back in 1480, 18,000 Turks besieged the town, killing 800 faithful Christians who refused to convert. Having taken the town, the Turks then thought nothing of using the cathedral to stable their horses. Amazing then that some of the most fabulous floor mosaics we have ever seen - if not the most simplistic in design, ever managed to survive. They are truly amazing! Depicting some really bizarre scenes of heaven and hell, with a menagerie of animals - monkeys, snakes, sea creatures - to our mosaic loving eyes they looked more like comic book animations than actual classical designs. It's really unfortunate, but no photography was allowed, and we didn't even manage to sneak in a quick one : (

The other truly weird thing about this church, is that the locals somehow managed to gather up the skulls and bones of the 800 or so marytred Christians from the 1480 siege, and have used them to decorate the side chapel. And I mean floor to ceiling stackings of the things. Lovely.

We love a good defensive fort

Today, aside from the ghoulish freak show in the cathedral, the main attractions in the old walled town appear to be the endless supply of delicatessens, gelaterias (from which we managed to abstain) and souvenir shops. Give me the skulls anyday!

Locals enjoying a taglio of pizza

Plastic tat with your sightseeing Sir?

SJ