Bari is pretty spesh. Let me tell you the tale of travel to get here - just in case you imagine I just BLINK like Jeannie the Good Witch and I'm at the next place.
After trying to sleep on a stomach full of home made pasta and a glass or two of red wine, and an aircon unit which was working hard at maintaining 29.6 degrees (What??) I reverted to the standard of no aircon, opened the terasa door and set the alarm to 5.30 with a hot date with the train at 6:30 am. Frascati to Rome Termini is 32 minutes - arrive in Rome, search for the correct binari (platform) for the train to Rome Fiumicino Aeroport (and then frantically try to wok out which terminal, to catch the flight to Bari). Mission accomplished with heaps of spare time to read. Flight is 1 hour - land, suss the train to get to Bari Centrale (ooops - no trains running at all today, no explanation, this is Italy after all), and then throw myself onto a bus, worrying that it may be heading in the wrong direction - :)
And so here I am in Bari - and this is where my old friend from school days will meet me to travel together for the week. It will be a bit of adjustment as I remember that I have someone to chat to, someone to make decisions with, someone to compare notes with and get lost in the labyrinth of Bari Vecchia with.
I had the opportunity to spend a happy few hours getting lost in Old Town Bari in the afternoon. Serendipity being what it is, the two 'don't miss' things that I wanted to see were right in the next street from the house we are staying in - the ladies sitting outside their house rolling the semolina dough into the classic Bari 'ear shaped' pasta, (and drying it in the sun) and the cafe with the yelling Nonna Carmela, who just serves you up what she's cooking for the day, no question, no conversation, no menu. I stood for ages waiting for a table at this place (Le Sgagliozze) - just a few tables outside a house, with food being cooked over gas cookers. Experience told me that it would be easier to get a table for four than just myself, (and I don't like having a table to myself when people are queueing) and so when 3 young Australian women stood in line I offered to grab a table for four , given I was next up, and they were back at the end of the queue - as long as they didn't mind sitting with me.
So we sat, and were served four different plates of food - with a gap of 'just 4 minutes' between each plate, which usually extended to about 20 minutes but was also two minutes on one course. Eggplant fried with mozzarella, risotto with potato, polenta with deep fried pimentos and pasta with tomato sauce. It was a fascinating experience, sitting watching the staff yell at each other, tables being joined, then divided as they tried to accommodate everyone. The sweat pouring off those guys was impressive.
The streets and alleys and tucked-away corners are gorgeous - you could spend all day taking photos as each little corner seems more picturesque. This is a living breathing loud (at times) village of alleys that double around and back onto themselves. In the evenings, the locals sit on chairs outside their houses chatting with their neighbours. Our place is stepped down from the alley with domed ceilings and some pretty precarious stairs up to the two sleeping mezzanines. Security cameras would not be needed here as these old Nonnas sitting outside their houses would see and know everything!
Puglia, but originally Apulia - from the Greek word Iapudes which means “those living on the other side of the Adriatic Sea". The heel of the boot of Italy. Has been the lesser lived tourist trail but is now heaving with visitors - lucky we are at the tail end of the season.
And now Sue is here and we will wander our way down the heel of the boot of Italy :)
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