– fewer crowds and lots of charm –
For Cal the day started with a call to his girlfriend. This was the only place he managed to get any reception!
Today we decided to visit another two small local towns. The first was Locorotondo.
It’s a small town perched up on a hill – as most of the towns seem to be in this area – dominated as always by a church which can be seen for miles around. By contrast to Alberobello, there were much fewer tourists. It has no particular sights of interest, but the town itself was gorgeous with beautifully kept whitewashed houses decorated with pretty flowering plants. The difference to Alberobello was that people actually live here. It would be lovely if it could stay this way but I’m sure that if we were to visit in another few years the “Disneyland” effect will have taken hold. I can’t be critical – I am after all contributing to this, and people need to make a living. But it would be such a shame to lose this.
Anyway, enough of that. We just spent the morning wandering around the small cobbled streets and then stopped for lunch at a hidden trattoria – the Ristorante ai Tre Santi – nestled in a tiny courtyard.
Locorotondo was incredibly photogenic – it’s no accident that it’s earned the official moniker of one of the ‘most beautiful towns in Italy’ – so the best I can do here is just let you see for yourself:
No, he wasn’t on his phone – just checking out his last photo! Some baroque inspired metalwork and stone work – we were to see a lot more of this throughout the area over the next few days:
This was probably the only building that wasn’t white in the entire town:
Otherwise everything was stuccoed white plaster or the beautiful cream coloured local limestone:
The churches tend to be constructed entirely from the local stone, including all the sculptures:
And we saw the first of the somewhat disturbing religious sculptures that they are fond of around here. This was Saint Anne I believe, although she appears to be a little masculine.
A view over the surrounding valley:
There was artwork scattered in little squares and alleys – just part of summer celebrations I think.
The locals seem to be keen gardeners and there were beautifully tended pot plants and flowers in almost every alley and on every balcony.
This little fella had his eye on some bug and took little interest in me, until the bug got away. He was one of the few animals we’ve seen in this area on this trip.
Our next stop was the town of Ceglie Messapica. By this stage the “pausa pranzo” was in full swing so we pretty much had the town to ourselves. Ceglie was even less of a tourist town than Locorotondo. It wasn’t as well kept but had the charm of slow, ancient decay.
That’s it – the end of the day. We returned home to a nice dip in the pool and then a homemade dinner, followed by cigars (boys!) and a briscola tournament with our Neapolitan cards. Nice!
