We arrived to our trullo just outside of the town of Locorotondo last evening after a long day of travel from Ripostena Country house. It was a two hour drive to Pisa where we returned our trusty VW rental car and caught our flight to Brindisi on the opposite coast, just above the boot heel! Our flight was supposed to be an hour and a half but we were surprised to land a half hour early. We got our rental car and hit the road again, backpacks stuffed in the rear and Garmin leading the way. When we arrived at our trullo we were excited to see that everything looked exactly like we expected, including the wonderful private pool outside our doors. Our trullo consists of two buildings, one houses one bedroom, bathroom, sitting area and kitchen and across the way in a separate trullo is the other bedroom/bathroom.
We generally travel quite frugally so are feeling like royalty in this amazing place. We dropped our bags and headed up the hill (always another hill in Italy) to the town of Locorotondo. This little place was full of unexpected magic around every corner. As with most smaller Italian towns many shops shut down in the afternoon and don't open again until dinner. We are struggling with this late dinner thing!! Our host here tells us that dinner has historically started at 9:00 but because of the burgeoning tourism the old ways are being challenged and some dining places are opening at the horrendous time of 7:30. We sweet-talked our way into a lovely little place last night though at 7:00. I think he saw hunger in our faces and took pity on us. Dinner was amazing; grilled vegetables, home made pasta and some amazing multi-flavoured gelato for dessert. All of this was enjoyed with a great glass of wine. After dinner we wandered the narrow 'streets' and enjoyed the chatter of the many locals out enjoying the great weather. It seems common here for groups of older men to be out, not many women in sight (maybe still in the kitchen).
We were tired after a day of travel so headed back to our trullo with plans to head back up the hill the next morning.
Bob and I headed out while Sherri and Randy did a load of wash and enjoyed the pool. We spied the trail (in the picture on the left) which looked like a short cut, through a culvert under the road and up to the steps beyond. Well, not so much. Bob ended up cutting through the field on the right to see if we could scale the hill and climb over the crumbling rock wall instead of going back where we came from. And that's what we did. He helped me get up via the stone rain spout, we hopped the wall, crossed the road and headed up ANOTHER set of Italian stone stairs.
We climbed the steps (already very hot early in the day) and this was the view we were rewarded with. We found the town smaller than we had thought the night before and spent a couple of hours just wandering the streets. Locorotondo is not as much of a tourist town as others so mostly there were a few small shops, a few restaurants and cafes and the token gelato shop or two. We spent the morning exploring, had lunch in town and headed back down the hill for a well-deserved swim.
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