Moving Down the Heel of the Boot

Day 171- 175

After 13 hours on our ferry from Greece we arrived into the port of Bari, Italy utterly starving. The ferry wasn't delayed, we just buggered up the time difference and although packing dinner the night before, we forgot to pack breakfast.

Coming from Greece to Italy is quite the culture shock. I'm not sure what it is, as the driving is equally as bad (if not worse) and there is still a large amount of rubbish, but something started to get us buzzing from the word go and it was good to click into another gear after spending six weeks doing a great deal of nothing in Greece.

Having seen much of northern Italy in previous trips, our plan on this occasion was to visit the south moving down the 'heel of the boot', on to the dorsal aspect of the foot and kick the football by landing into the mafia territory of Sicily.

The following photos are a collection of our time in the regions of Puglia and Basilicata.

The region of Puglia is littered with these stone structures known as Trulli. This the the 'Siamese Trulli' in the town of Alberobello.

The town of Alberobello, littered with 'Trulli' housing and now a Unesco World Heritage site.

If Claire had a complex about her height, it just got a little bit worse!

We arrived into the town of Locorotando on a very quiet Sunday afternoon. The choice of attractions that day was a local funeral or the local soccer derby. I managed to convince Claire that the soccer would be slightly more entertaining. Although we were only there for about 10 mins, we did manage to see a goal and a large number of Italians diving.

Ostuni - also know as the White City.

Hanging your washing out in clear public view is a common site in Italy. A lot of people seem to have white undies, which are remarkably clean.

And this is why they call Ostuni the 'White City'. Could do with another coat of Dulux though I think.

Ostuni

The backstreets of Otranto, where you can only really get an old school Fiat 500 down.

Still sporting tans from Greece in Otranto.

Panoramic of the town of Otranto. A couple of days in we started to realise that driving into Italian towns in an 8 metre camper isn't ideal and the Italians are quite anal on where you park your camper.

This is the town of Gallipoli in Italy. I wonder how many knob heads in Fanatics T-Shirts land on the beach here each April 25th?

On the search for Gelato in Gallipoli. We soon realised that in the south of Italy, whole towns shut up and inhabitants disappear between 1pm and 3pm (and sometimes later). 

The town of Matera, Basilicata - Italy. Apparently, this is also the site for the filming of 'The Passion of the Christ'.

It's difficult to tell from the photo, but the landscape is littered with small caves that were inhabited by townsfolk up until the 1950's when they were forcibly evicted after an Italian writer spoke about their squalid conditions.

Getting lost in the labyrinth of 'Sassi' - the old town of Matera. 

The Sassi area of Matera looks more like a town out of the middle east rather than Italy. It's also quite amazing that after a couple of flights of stairs out of the old town, you enter the modern bustling 'New Town' of Matera lined with designer stores and bustling with vehicles - something you don't really see in this ancient town.

The Middle East or Italy?

San Pietro Cathedral overlooking the steep canyon that Matera sits upon.

Making our way back down the canyon and out of town.

After about 18,000 miles we encountered our first major issue with Maxi - a shredded flywheel.

While we waited for the van to get fixed one of the mechanics took us to his families local restaurant, where we were served the traditional food of Altamura and Basilicata. In this case the local fare was Horse.

It was actually quite delicious and we had two courses of horses.

Day 5 of waiting for the van to be fixed (we spent 4 nights on the Amalfi Coast). The weather was quite treacherous and the smooth paved stone in the town of Altamura turned the whole place into a river.

I don't know why we look so happy after forking out over $2000 Euro's. I think we were happy just to get back on the road. The guys in the above photo were extremely hospitable. Michele (standing right of Claire) introduced us to eating horse and Antonio fixed Maxi and gave us their wireless password.