Italy
Museo Faggiano

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    • Day 6

      Team One More Last Drink

      March 6, 2023 in Italy ⋅ 🌙 46 °F

      I met Marles and Christina at Gusto Libermma. They were having small plates of food, but I was stuffed from the pasta class. I ordered a drink and heard about their night. They loved the gospel choir--it sounded wonderful. We talked and talked. I found out that Marles was traveling because she just found out that her cancer came back and had metastasized on her lung and lymphnodes. She quit her job as an accountant and has been traveling around Italy for 2 weeks already. She's been to Naples, Pompeii, Bari, Monopoli, and of course Brindisi and Lecce. She has a partner and a daughter at home in Bruges. Not sure what Christina's situation is. She's got 3 young kids and an ex-husband at home
      He works for NATO, so my guess is that she's stuck here and needed to get away. She seems very sad.

      Anyway, we spent a lot of time talking about food we ate as kids--peanut butter and jelly, all the Hostess products, and Kraft Mac n Cheese. Marles did not try McDonald's until she was an adult. Next thing we know, the place is empty. Yes, we closed down another establishment.

      They wanted to go back to the cocktail bar they went to last night--Quanto Basta. We ordered drinks and continued the conversation. It's amazing what people who met less than 24 hours ago will talk about after hanging out all day and having a bunch of drinks. The title of this post comes from our joke that we had several "last" drinks.

      All of the sudden, we realized that yes, we were the only ones left. It made the 3rd place we closed down for the day! We paid and headed our separate ways home. We decided we would meet up for breakfast. Christina had a noon train to Ferrara and Marles was headed to Matera.
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    • Day 6

      DIY Nightmare or DIY Dream?

      April 6, 2019 in Italy ⋅ ⛅ 11 °C

      In 1971, Luciano Faggiano purchased a building in the old city with the intent of opening his own trattoria. Shortly into the project he discovered water continuously appearing on the floor of the building.

      In order to fix what he assumed was a broken pipe, he enlisted the help of his son and began breaking through the stone floor. Much to his surprise, beneath the floor, he found an ancient sub floor and evidence of additional windows into the region’s long history.

      After seven years of digging and the involvement of archeological experts, Luciano uncovered an underground world dating back before the birth of Jesus, with many rooms, cisterns, escape tunnels, Messapian tombs, a Roman granary, a Franciscan chapel and even etchings from the Knights Templar. More than five thousand artifacts were uncovered during the excavation, the best of which are now housed in a nearby museum.

      Rather than open a trattoria, Luciano converted the building to a truly fascinating museum that allows visitors to descend into the ancient structures and see first hand where these treasures were found. Our visit there was probably the highlight of our stay in Lecce (with the possible exception of the gelato).

      So fascinating is the story that no less that the New York Times published an article on the museum: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/15/world/europe…

      Since I am limited to posting only six photos on this blog, here is a link to the museum’s photo gallery: http://www.museofaggiano.it/en/photo-gallery/

      Luciano still hasn’t opened his trattoria, but plans are in the works.

      Oh yeah, in 2008, he finally located and repaired the broken pipe.
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    • Day 5

      Lecce

      October 13, 2021 in Italy ⋅ 🌙 12 °C

      Lecce is a beautiful Baroque town and we took a 2 hr tour in the morning where we saw many baroque churches with incredible rich detail. As with most Italian places, there are layers of history in Lecce and there is a Roman amphitheater underneath the city, partially excavated. We then took a good of Jewish quarter and Jewish museum, which opened only a few years ago, showing rich and forgotten history of the once flourishing Jewish population in Lecce. We then had delicious lunch at Coccina Mamma Elvira - fish and pasta with porcini mushrooms. And we also had local pastries filled with custard - super rich and yummy!Read more

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