Home in CVS August 6, 2016

We had an amazing week in Puglia with our friends. They made all our meals, drove us all around and provided inspiring and fun conversation.

The landscape of Puglia makes it like a different country from here and until about 150 years ago it was. That is a very short time in a recorded history that goes back about 5000 years. Puglia is flat. The colors are golden ochre, burnt sienna with a little white, dusty blue green of the olive trees and every shade of brown. The soil is rich and often red. It is raked clean under the immense olive trees. The landscape is dotted with abandoned trulis and lined with the dry stack walls of stones. On the train we could see the red striped lances of wind turbines jousting with the sky above the dry landscape. The fields are burned after the harvest adding stripes of black. In the old days starving people were allowed to clean the burned fields creating the bar snack we all know and love: Taralli. Now they are calling them love knots, but the truth is they are the food of last resort.

Imagine these black.

Imagine starving in one of the richest food production areas in Italy.

This is the map of our train trip. We went from Lecce in the heel of Italy to Foggia and then west to Caseta and then north to Roma. In Roma we took the train to Fuimocino airport and rented a car. Now we have wheels for the next 13 days. 

After only a few days away we were stunned at the beauty of Abruzzo. We have never left Roma in the evening by car and it was all fairytale like with castels on every hill illuminated by the sun.

It wouldn't be Italy without a trip to IKEA. We never seem to go in the US or Canada. The meatballs were delicious and the shopping was fun. We were there mainly for frames, but somehow, we bought a few more things. Oh yes, I got a suitcase that is the exact size for Ryanair carry-on. Maybe we will make a trip around Europe sometime!

After IKEA it was time for our favorite beach. Yes, stones are much better than sand. The beach was so peaceful and we actually took a nap. When we woke up it was cloudy and soon we heard the sound of thunder. What, a storm at the beach? People were packing up in a frenzy, but we calmly sat under our umbrellas. Finally we decided it was time to go. By the time we got to the car a few drops of rain were falling and the lightning strikes were very near.

Just before desertion 

Soon the rain was torrential necessitating a stop under a tree when it started hailing! Do you have to pay if your rental car gets hailed on? After a bit it stopped and we decided to risk the Autostrade. Big mistake the rain fell in sheets and the lightening and thunder were simultaneous, but soon we were in an area where not a drop of rain had fallen and people in CVS knew nothing about it.

In the evening there was a comic show in the small piazza. People were enjoying themselves and so were we as once again we got free drinks! Eventually, we were too tired to listen to words that we couldn't understand and we went home.

This morning, surprise, it was beautiful. I always think I will go back to bed after a visit to the terrace bathroom, but I never can. Beauty calls.