DAY 505 - Italy...the whole boot & caboodle

 After returning from Sicily we than headed straight to Puglia for a week before we had to catch our ferry to Greece.    Puglia is beautiful and feel’s so different than the rest of Italy and is defiantly one of Italy’s best kept secrets.  Not many international tourists come here, unless it’s to get the ferry to Greece or Croatia and in fact the landscape is more Croatian and Greek than it is Italian.  It’s unbelievably clean compared to the rest of Italy and ‘no wild fires’.  It’s a relatively small area compared to the rest of Italy and is really easy to place yourself in one spot and do day trips to the rest of the region, which is exactly what we did. 

We stayed on the beach in Torre Canne near Monopoli, where the coast line is considered to be some of the best in the area and country.  This stretch of coastline and that around Lecce are breathtaking with ancient ruins protruding out of the water’s edge and dotting the coastline for 100’s miles is a pretty spectacular setting.  Inland hill top villages with funny little “Turril’ houses dot the landscape.  Turrill house are a round house, with round flat top cone shape roof’s, all painted white.  A really unusal setting for Italy and the towns of Alberbello & Locorotondo are not to be missed.   

The Italian’s also like to wild camp and in fact seems to be a national art form.  Its high season in Italy now and every man and his Italian dog are on holidays.  The beaches become impromptu camp grounds and parties go on until all hours of the morning.  We initially had the beach to ourselves for a few days when it was a bit windy, but as soon as the winds went, the tents, bbq’s, market umbrellas and Dj’s systems came.  It was a hoot to see the local’s, young and old, party all day and night and then sleep on their deck chairs to do it all again the next day…..party beach camping with the locals – just awesome.

Italian’s like to multi-task!  Particularly when it comes to riding a scooter or driving a car.  Some examples:-  smoking a cigarette whist talking on the mobile;   leaning on handle bars while talking on the mobile;  family of 4 squeezed onto 1 scooter with no helmets;  weaving in and out of traffic without looking whilst using your hands to talk to the  person in passenger seat......Italians deserve every bit of their bad reputation for being bad driver, however I must admit the French are pretty bad too.

If Rome is the heart of Italy, then Naples has to be the bum hole!  It’s like the Asia of Italy.  Crazy, lawless, good food, scooters zinging around all over the place, queue jumping is a national pastime, everyone smokes, rubbish everywhere and absolutely no road rules obeyed.  

One thing we’ve noticed about Italy is that there seems to be a lot of wild fires.  Every 2^nd field or hill has recently been burnt and there also seems to be an obsession with dumping rubbish along roadways and lighting it, which is not one of the prettiest sides of Italy to see.  

Puglia is the only area not like this…..a well-kept gem that’s for sure.

DAY 501 - a Sicilian affair

Tonara Scopello

In typical Rose and Paul style we didn’t do any research on Sicily.  The only thing we knew is that the North was having a week of rain when we arrived so we decided to head south.  After exiting the ferry terminal, hitting heavy traffic, avoiding low hanging balconies and dodging a rider who had just come off his motorbike, we decided to ditch the scenic route and take the motorway south to the good weather.  

We found some pretty great spots along the coast to wild camp with the ocean right at our door step.  We’re didn’t think much of the cities in Sicily, but that might be a bit unfair as it was so hot and we just wanted to keep close to the water.  But Sicily certainly has some awesome smaller towns defiantly worth visiting in all weather.  

Noto was my favorite; it’s a pretty baroque town and feels like you’re in a movie set.  Agrigento has some ancient Greek temples which we visited at dusk which turned out to be a pretty awesome way to see them, as the colors of the stone change with the sunset and then the lighting affect they give the temples at night is wonderful.  Also, on a 40+c heat…it certainly beats walking around during the middle of the day.

Noto reminded me of the Sicilian town out of the Godfather Movie

The highlight of Sicily has got to be San Vito Lo Capo area for us.  We found this amazing wild camping spot and decided to stay for a week.  High season has finally hit us and we were joined by around 20 other campers after a few days.  Gone was the peace and quiet and out came the BBQ’s, wine, beer, late nights & lots of loud children.  It was great fun and we just love how Italians like to make friends with you by offering food and wine.

San Vito lo Capo town

We’ve had some the best nights and conversations with locals over a bottle of Lemoncino….we don’t speak Italiano, they don’t speak Inglese…..that goodness for Google translate.

Another highlight for us was visiting Sicily’s 2 great active volcanos.  Etna is huge and the drive up is really exciting, it’s such a famous volcano and was high on our list of must see’s in Sicily.  As the road twists and turns through the old lava flows, the views are awesome and it’s real cool to know you are standing on an active volcano with so much history in our generation.  The views from the top are pretty amazing and gives a goof view of just how many little blow holes to this massive volcano there is and how it has shaped the landscape around it.  You can also ski up here in winter, which would be pretty cool.

our first view of Stromboli

We also did a day trip by boat and visited some of the islands off the Northern coast of Sicily.  The trip we did was to see Stromboli by night but it also included visiting the Island of Panrea.  I generally hate organized day trips as find they are badly run and overpriced, but I would have to say this was probably the best 35euro we spent.  Watching Stromboli exploding at night was an unbelievable experience.  It explodes 3-4 times every hour and we had a great view from our boat across the water.  We are now really keen to go back next year and to the climb to the crater and spend a few days exploring these Islands off the coast of Sicily a little more.