Polignano A Mare

What a perfect end to a wonderful journey!  Polignano A Mare was everything we hoped it would be to end of our three weeks exploring Italy.  We stayed in the heart (and on the edge) of the historical centre, steps away from the piazza.  Our room included a roof top patio and all windows gazed down on the turquoise waters of the Adriatic Sea.  While the weather predictions had not been great we enjoyed 3 days of hot, sunny days and cool, clear nights.  Both of the shots below were taken from the windows of our top floor Air BnB.

We made no plans for these three days so we parked the car and walked and walked and walked.  It helped that the weather was terrific but it wouldn't have mattered.  We were seaside and could walk for miles in both directions along the shoreline, and that's mostly what we did.  This whole trip has been made up of moments where you actually felt transported back in time.  The rock road below definitely had me thinking of Friar Tuck and his wagon of ale.  We couldn't begin to imagine how many steps it had taken for the steps on the right to be indented several inches over hundreds and/or thousands of years of people going up and down to the cannons on the wall above.

  

As in almost every town we went to, the piazza ruled the day. From morning coffee and croissants to an afternoon gelato break and on to the crazy late, four course Italian dinners, the piazza was the place to be.  There is a vibrancy in these small Italian towns that we are missing here in Canada and I wondered often if Italy had claimed and settled our country whether we would all be hanging at the piazza like they do there.

Of course, the other wonderful part of piazzas is that they are surrounded by a maze of narrow, cobblestoned, residential and business alleyways.  Other than Grottaglie, it seemed that even the smallest of towns kept these niches full of healthy flowers and planters and almost all are whitewashed and spotless.  The only thing that took away from the beauty were the incredible number of cigarette butts everywhere!  The photos on the left and right below are of the stairway leading to Amoredemare, our apartment.

As  mentioned above, our days were full of walking and exploring and reading and eating and more walking and exploring and perhaps even a glass of local wine or two.  The landscape was amazing and we made the most of our time here just enjoying what Mother Nature had provided.

 

From the northwest coast of Italy, down through Sienna and across to the eastern coast, Italy was amazing.  As they say often in this country, Arrivederci et ciao!