Yesterday What a Day!

Rain in actual lashes, flooding sidewalks and streets, wet tourists and a damp but undampened bride. What a day! Oh yes, and the little town of Lecce.

Lecce has been dubbed “the Florence of Puglia”, and I’m sure it is very pretty when the sun is shining. But yesterday was not that day. However, it is our last day in southern Puglia and it was now or never. Don is getting a little tired of driving (how easily he forgets the last trip when I drove the entire time – 6 weeks with a stick shift!), but we headed out anyway.

First stop – buy an umbrella.

Here are a few pictures on the way into the historic centre of town:

As we got to a main square, the skies opened and we dove into the first covered restaurant we saw and hunkered down to watch the passing parade. It was actually a lot of fu – especially after 2 glasses of wine and being joined by a group of 5 bedraggle travellers (and their sopping dog), and squeezing them into the one dry area under the massive, but separate, umbrellas. We even got to watch another bride emerge from photos with her Papa – her poor dress was soggy on the bottom, but I don’t think she was too worried about it.

This guy was making a killing selling umbrellas:

We had the best seat in the house:

It was so entertaining, I could literally have stayed there all afternoon. But, Don had to drive us home and thought we should probably get going. Even the tourists on the covered tour train needed their umbrellas. Mama Mia!! So, we took the obligatory photo of the front of the cathedral and called it a day.

So that was yesterday – and all night long the storm raged on.

But! Today is a new day and the sun is shining once again. Here is a last photo of the place we stayed, Masseria Panareo. I wouldn’t stay here again for a variety of reasons, the main one being that it would be nice to stay in the town of Otranto so that you don’t have to drive at night.

Last stop in Italy is the seaside town of Polignano al Mare, just south of Bari. When I booked this B&B, I was thinking that it would still be very hot here and we would appreciate a pool. Now, in the historic centre of these towns down here, there were no (and still are no) pools. So this place is walking distance, but in the new part of town. Next time, I would choose one of the places with a little terrace and an ocean view right in the old town, but live and learn (again).

There is a public beach here that is very popular and we are planning to head there tomorrow morning. One more swim before we head to Paris for our last 4 days and where the forecast is quite dismal. Here is the local beach:

Just had time for a drink at a fancy place and then search for a reasonable place. I guess I should have known that seafood would be the order of the day around here. My Kingdom for some Lemon Prawn Risotto!!! If you don’t want varied seafood (“trawler’s catch”), then you are stuck with lasagna (maybe), pasta with plain tomato sauce, or . . . nope, I think that’s it. Oh yes, pizza. Which is great, but twice a day might be pushing it, even for us. Here are a few pics of our first afternoon in Polignano:

Tomorrow is our last day in Italy and hopefully it will include a swim and who knows what else. Until then . . . Ciao for now!