With a long drive ahead we set off for Puglia. We stopped at Taranto where we had a quick coffee looking at the castle between the two seas but storm clouds were gathering so we thought we’d push on. Overcast weather is perfect for long drives; you don’t get cooked or stuck to the seats.
We started driving, wound our way through the back streets of Taranto and then the storm caught up with us big time. Italy doesn’t do weather by halves.
GS managed to out drive it, and soon we were on dry country roads. There low stone walls, with olive groves and fight d’indie and fig trees. The groves were either knee deep in wild flowers, meadow or the soil had been tilled. Its dark red, truly the colour of terracotta or ‘burnt earth’.
We were astonished at the olive trees. Their trunks were thick, sometimes split into, twisted into shapes. They must be hundreds of years old, we agreed, only to discover that they were 3-4000 years old.
And you can feel it.
GS and I walked amongst them. They were incredible, their ancient souls radiating. In ancient Greek and Roman times groves were sacred, revered as places where the Gods lived, holy places of respect and sacrifice. The things those trees had witnessed, the stories they could tell. It was incredibly atmospheric, made more so in the still ominous air of the approaching storm.
As we stood amongst the trees so the thunder of the approaching storm rumbled around us, and the first heavy drops landed. We just about made it to the car before all hell broke loose.
As we drove further south so the olive groves began to look like graveyards. Wonderful thousand year old trees stood, one after the other dead. A few shoots of life occasionally sprang from their roots. It was piteous. Apparently they are being ravaged by a bacteria for which there is no known cure.
We managed to get ahead of the storm, just and passed some sandy beaches before skirting past the most south easterly point in Italy, the very bottom of the heel Santa Maria de Leuca
Dinner, in a little fish restaurant hanging over the cliffs was of course fabulous, made more so by the fact that the road had been blocked and since there was no other means of getting us there- and they wouldn’t let us walk the one kilometre in the dark, Paula, the receptionist drove us 12kms to a restaurant we could see from our terrace, and the owners- drove us back in the middle of a football match. Unbelievable.
Absolutely fabulous place, people and food.
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