Ostuni

Sadly, our stay in magical marvellous Matera came to an end. We packed up our bags and hyped ourselves up for the tour we were absolutely to begin. Alessandro, a tour guide and as we later discovered, a wine and olive oil sommelier was taking us to Ostuni. On the way, we were to stop at Martina Franco and Alberobello.

The Awesome Foursomes don’t go anywhere with anyone unless food was involved. Alessandro knew us well and after a 10 minute drive, he stopped us at a bakery to eat some typical Matera bread and focaccia. We stocked up on 3 different types of focaccia which unfortunately was to be saved for Ostuni’s meals. No eating. Arriving in Martina Franco, we were amazed at how our guide was able to navigate the small alley ways to show us the beautiful town. We toured a palace and was described daily life in the ancient (pronounced ain-s-ient) times. Soon we were lead out of the town, back to the car and ready for or next stop.

Remember, we need food. So, our next stop was a cheese tasting. Our tour guide lead us passed the cheese shop and getting anxious, thinking we need to walk more for our food, we were lead through a beaded curtain and were greeted by 6 muscled men making the cheese. They were working hard and fast making buffalo mozzarella. Our tour guide explained to us that the liquid they are dishing the cheese out of is 65C and that’s when we discovered that the men’s hands were bright pink and they had to dip it in cold water every few minutes not seconds to stop it from scalding. Then they started making another cheese that was half ricotta half cream cheese. The blocks of this cheese that one man was scooping out of a 1m deep trough was 3kg and he lifted it like it was a marshmallow. Now, I appreciate cheese even more and try very hard no to think of all the sweat that may be in my cheese. Yuck!! We then were finally able to taste the various cheeses and were in love. We bought 3 different cheeses which were again, to be kept for Ostuni.

Alberobello is a town filled with trulli. Trulli are what look like tepees made out of stones. I will let the photos describe. Words can’t. They were phenomenal. Perfectly rounded and all the same so the town looks almost identical in every direction yet each corner has something different. From, houses owned by old Nona’s to restaurants and souvenir shops. Knowing us well, Alessandro lead us into a pastry shop known for their typical pastry cakes. So of course, we had to get some and these, we could eat immediately. Yay!

Our next stop was the olive oil farm where we going to find out how olive oil was made . This time, in an industrial way rather than a small farm production like Francesco and his families in Assisi. We were allowed to taste the olive oil. More food.
Crates containing 350kg of olives lined the factory and they looked yummy. I wanted to jump right in and start eating them all but I contained by urge and stayed out of the crate. We were explained how olive oil was made manually which takes 3-4 hours and mechanically which took 45 minutes. The mechanical machine was going full steam ahead and to see the process was amazing. From whole olives being washed to mushy olives looked like tapenade to curd looking oil to pure olive oil. It was quite amazing to see the process. We tasted the olive oils (all 6 types) and were amazed at how olive oil can taste so different depending on whether it is organic or not and manually or mechanically made. Quite frankly, I could not taste the difference between organic or not, but manually made olive oil tasted so much better than the machine made oil. Now average mini market bought olive oil is not nice. We are so spoilt in Italy with food.

Later arriving in Ostuni, we were taken to our accomodation which is 3.5 stories. Bedrooms on the ground floor and a bathroom (all very open plan), a bathroom as you ascend the stairs, a kitchen, dining and living area on the next level and the 4th level has a beautiful terrace.

We were so tired, we made our way to dinner then collapsed in our super comfy bed ready for our exploration the next morning.

I thought after the busy day we had yesterday full of cheese and olive oil tastings . We would be up at mid day.

First day in ostuni we all must have been excited to explore . We where all up by 8am . We had a very yummy breakfast of foccasies, cheese and bread. We all scoffed down our breakfast and decided to go and visit the only 2 sites listed in kai's Kindle. The cathedral which was amazing inside with beautiful facades. We where very fortunate to have the sun shine through the windows so we could see the interior of the cathedral. The second site was an archeological museum it was a 5 euro entrance fee so we gave it a miss.

We then went for a walk to find dudo's coffee. A nice lady in a shop recommended a coffee place up the street. Which serves appertivos so look forward to writing about it in our next post.

After a slow stroll in the park it started to bucket down with rain. In a panic Kai got the umbrella out and the camera went back in the case.

We where very fortunate to have some left over pasta , garlic and a tin of tomatoes and cheese from our cheese tasting shop yesterday to have for lunch. Otherwise we might have just starved. As we figured out ostuni is like a ghost town nothing was open except a few sandwich shops and coffee shops.

Now we are all sitting in our apartment catching up with reality Facebook, emails and what's app.Read more