Aliways and Ulice

 This is it folks, the end of the blogging, this is the last one, and it will be brief - because, well the excursion was brief. Following Rocco's advice, I set off this morning at 8 to go to Ostuni - I jumped online to see the best way to do so. You see, to date, I have relied on trains, and there is no train to Ostuni. 'Rome to Rio' (great travel site) said Bus/ Taxi/ Drive. Unfortunately, the information for the buses was scant - and the more I checked it out, the more I could see that there were three bus companies and no particular 'station' as such. I spotted people with suitcases down the hill from the old town here, spoke to them, a bus pulled up, was going to Fasano and the driver indicated that I should get on. He said I could then take the bus to Ostuni. Arrive in Fasano, sprawling large city- someone pointed me in the direction of a link bus to the train station because it seems that there is a train to Ostuni from Fasano (but no train from Locorotondo t

 I was tossing up whether to try to visit another town or find something else to do - a cooking class?(booked out and hell expensive), a walking tour (booked out and hell expensive) - and spotted a e-cycle tour for three hours in the afternoon. Sounded like a bit of me. I arranged to meet the tour guide in a nearby carpark - turned out it was just me and him - Rocco. The plan was to cycle the longest aqueduct in Europe - or at least a part of it.  As I've mentioned before, and not in an unkind way to dig at Auckland,  it doesn't rain much in Puglia, en fact, to the extent that there are often droughts. The economy is based on olive oil, wine  - fruit and veg, and these need water. Water for agriculture has always been a major issue  - the main rock material Puglia is limestone, low and sandy, so any rain just drains away. There are only two main rivers in the area, and these are in the north of Puglia. So, in 1860 an  engineer came up with the crazy idea of piping water from th

 When I mentioned that there is so much gorgeousness within a 15 minuted train ride from here, I was firstly thinking about Alberobello, home of the Trulli houses. Bearing in mind the throw away comment from our walking tour guide guy in Bari (he said 'so many people go to see the trulli, take a photo and what? what? just to tick that off the list? what do you see of the people, there are no people left to see...' you get the drift. But still, I wanted to see what the fuss was about. Train ride, opposite direction from Martina Franca (also a gorgeous hill town), 12 minutes, and as we got closer to Alberobello, the little piles of rocks in the fields (pagghiara in Lecce)  became more sophisticated,  combined into substantial dwellings - arrived at the station.. ... and bingo! it rained. Hard. Luckily I was just beside a cafe so took the opportunity to have a coffee and a pasticciotto  - these are little pastries with a choice of creme custard, nutella (ick) or pistachio creme (a