I'm not a tour group sort of person however last Friday I joined a small group of adult students from the boys school, to the "Salentina Greca". A large part of this region is known as the Salentina and there are many small towns where "Grika" is spoken - it is like an Ancient Greek! The region that we are in, La Puglia is not very well known in Australia and I don't know anyone who has ever travelled here. The coastline we have discovered is sensational and the towns and villages not only gorgeous to look at but with a fascinating history.
Anyway back to my tour.....I was also relishing the opportunity to have some time on my own. Had a fantastic afternoon, visiting a number of small towns, meeting some interesting locals, going underground to a 600 year old olive oil factory and the highlight was visiting a church "Santa Caterina" with possibly the best frescoes outside of the Sistine Chapel. Another highlight was meeting a lovely American lady Susan with whom I shared loads of similarities. I also met English John who has now retired and has decided to pack up his car and drive to italy and just live here indefinitely. One of the greatest joys of travelling is meeting interesting people and hopefully being able to maintain some of those connections.
Last week i went in search of a car hire company and of course "La Stagione e Finita" so it was impossible to find anything, so in typical Marie fashion I met a friend of a friend who rented out cars "cheaply". Went to see him, all sorted for a pick up on saturday morning for our weekend of touring and agreed on 40E a day. Glenn and I took off saturday morn and nearly died when we got our "Lancia". It would not have made it to "Rent a Bomb " back home. We had no other choices so I bargained it down to 30E and off we went. We took off to Gallipoli, a fishing village on the coast about an hour away. Another gorgeous town, very picturesque etc but again the highlight of the day was meeting "Richard". We were walking towards the port and had stopped to look at a map when a guy turned to us and asked a question..., he turned out to be Australian who, with his wife and 2 daughters were sailing around the Mediterranean. They had already been away for 4 months and were in Gallipoli because of bad weather etc. He lived in Mt Waverley and when I asked about the girls and school he said that the girls went to Wesley! I would not have been at all surprised had we been in Rome, Florence or Venice but Gallipoli in the south of Italy....never!
Sunday was another touring day but it came to an abrupt halt when in the middle of nowhere, our car overheated. We did make it home just in time for us to go to the local soccer game. Men pay 5E entry but women and children free!
The weather changed over the weekend and it is hard to believe this is the same town as the last 2 weeks. It is blowing a gale and only tourists are out in the streets. The beach looks like a surf beach and we even saw some guys surfing there today.
We're ready to leave here on Friday and are now very much looking forward to the next chapter in Lucca.
No time to post any photos as the rest of the family is hovering to use the computer.
Ciao
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