Tuesday, 4 June 2019
Biked 50 miles to PalagianoAccommodations: Agriturismo Fiori d’Arancia. A double room with private bath on an orange estate at the edge of town. The room was wonderful, the host welcoming, and breakfast good, including fresh squeezed blood orange juice from the farm's produce.
Dinner: We did not find a restaurant open within walking distance.
This was a tough day of biking. We had to go around the large city Tarranto, which involved some riding on very busy highways with no shoulders, a long stretch on a very rough dirt road, and a long climb up to Palagiano.
We were starving and tired, and disappointed to find all the restaurants within about a mile were closed. We were not hungry for the by-the-slice pizza in one takeout cafe that was open. We finally settled for potato chips and ice cream from a corner shop.
Wednesday, 5 June 2019
Biked 35 miles to MateraAccommodations: Casa Enrica nei Sassi, host Daniela Carmen. A wonderful apartment with full kitchen, bath with washing machine, bedroom, living room, and terrace. Reachable only by stone stairways in the city walls, views of the church ruins outside the kitchen window. Awesome location on the edge of the stasi. Daniela and her husband were incredible hosts. Night 1 of 3.
 |
| Fields of flowers on the way to Matera. |
 |
| Matera. |
 |
| Plaza near our apartment. |
Thursday, 6 June 2019
Rest and haircut day.
Accommodations: Casa Enrica nei Sassi. Night 2 of 3.
Daniela made reservations for us to get haircuts at a salon. The stylists did not speak English, and we speak only a few words of Italian. One of the assistants used Google translate to help us communicate. It was an experience!
 |
| Hillside ruins across the gorge from the stasi where we were staying. |
 |
| Matera at twilight. Historically, the higher you went on the hillside, the more wealthy the residents. |
Friday, 7 June 2019
The stassi (where our apartment was located) and the Park of the Rupestrian Churches (across the ravine from the stassi) together comprise a Unesco World Heritage site. The park includes ancient churches and dwellings going back over 2000 years. It was a very hot, sunny day. We chained our bikes to a picnic table, bought cool drinks at the visitor center, donned our hiking hats, and explored the site on foot.
 |
| Ken in the opening of cavelike ancient church. |
Saturday, 8 June 2019
Biked 40 miles to Alberobello.
Accommodations: Dimora nella Stella - zona centro. Apartment in center of old town. Hosts Michele and Maria Carmela. Booked through AirBnb. Comfortable, cool studio apartment tucked into an alleyway off a busy street with shops and restaurants. Night 1 of 2.Lunch: Wonderful assortment of local cheeses and breads, and the best seafood salad we have had in Italy. The restaurant was at the edge of the central square when we arrived in town, We can't remember the name of it!
 |
| Church on the route to Alberobello. |
 |
| Trulli shops in the old town. |
 |
| View from the rooftop garden of a trulli shop. |
 |
| Ken exploring the streets of the old town. |
 |
| Our studio apartment had been renovated from a building with trulli features. |
Sunday, 9 June 2019
Tourist day, exploring Alberobello on foot.Accommodations: Dimora nella Stella - zona centro. Night 2 of 2.
Beautiful, hot, sunny day. We rested in our cool apartment, walked around the town, ate, did some laundry, and enjoyed being tourists.
Monday, 10 June 2019
Biked 30 miles to OstuniAccommodations: Delicious House. Host Antonio, who lives in Turino. Antonio's father has a shop in Ostuni, and he met us and walked us to the apartment and gave us a brief history of the apartment. An incredible apartment built in the wall of the old castle at the top of the town. The bedroom was actually a room in the castle, the rest of the apartment was a step down outside the castle wall. We had a washing machine and full kitchen. Really a wonderful place to stay. Booked through AirBnb. Night 1 of 3.
 |
| Ken playing with his phone (camera/GPS) on the way to Ostuni. |
 |
| Ostuni is called the White City because most of its buildings are white. It is a beautiful city built at the top of a hill near the sea, with narrow, twisty alleyways. |
 |
| A step up from the living room of our apartment led through the old castle wall into the bedroom. |
Tuesday, 11 June 2019
Biked 15 miles to the beach and backThe whole time we were biking in Puglia, we were looking for a hot, sunny, white sand beach. Ostuni is just a few miles from several recommended beaches. So we set out the morning of 11 June, on our bikes, to find one. It took a bit of searching. The beach we were looking for ended up being accessible only through the grounds of a restaurant/bar that was being remodeled and would not allow us to use the path. We ended up biking through a very rough road and trail along the shore to this secluded little beach. We shared this spot with one other person. The sand was so hot we couldn't walk on it barefoot!
 |
| Finally--a day at the beach. Ken soaked up the rays. |
 |
| Church near our apartment. |
 |
| Over the years, the walls of the building within the city have settled, and braces have been added to support them and keep them from collapsing into each other. |
Wednesday, 12 June 2019
Accommodations: Delicious House. Night 3 of 3.Every time we walked through the city, we ended up going past David's shop and waving hello to David. Today he stopped us and introduced his daughter (Antonio's sister), who is an architect and was visiting. She volunteered to take us on a historical tour of the city and share her knowledge of the architecture. We had a delightful hour with her. Such a gracious, intelligent, and welcoming family!
 |
| The main square in the center of Ostuni. |
Thursday, 13 June 2019
Biked 25 miles to Brindisi.Accommodations: Apartment hosted by Armando Argentieri and Giuseppe. We chose this apartment because it is in a residential neighborhood near the bike shop supplying us with boxes for flying our bikes to Munich, and also near shops and restaurants and easily accessible for a taxi driver to the airport. The location was good, but the apartment was not comfortable. The windows opened to an inner courtyard that was noisy and airless, the host regulated the air conditioning so that it operated only a few hours a day and did not cool the apartment, and there was a moldy odor. Booked through AirBnb. Night 1 of 3
A beautiful, hot, sunny day biking through farmland and small towns back to Brindisi, where we began our Puglia tour.
 |
| Shady courtyard of a church in the town where we had lunch. |
 | ||
Most of our route this day was on small access roads through farmland. We got a little lost here and ended up turning around a couple times before we found our way.
|
Friday, 14 June 2019
Packing and preparing day.Accommodations: Apartment hosted by Armando Argentieri and Giuseppe. Day 2 of 3.
We chose to spend 3 nights in Brindisi to ensure that we could get the bikes packed up and ourselves ready for the journey Munich so that we could get everything set up for Josh and Meghan to join us there. That part worked out well. Our first full day in Brindisi we found bike boxes, got the bikes packed up, and arranged a van to shuttle us to the airport through a friend of the bike shop owner.
Saturday, 15 June 2019
Rest day.Accommodations: Apartment hosted by Armando Argentieri and Giuseppe. Day 3 of 3.
