Day 117 The Navy has it!

Monday 16/07/2018 (Day 31 SZ) Ceglie Messapica, Puglia 72013, Italy

A quite start to Monday just stayed around the unit until 1 pm, then headed to Francavilla for groceries but couldn’t find a bigger shopping centre so then drive to to Taranto a much bigger. Enter a port city, that had marked a big shopping g centre in google maps... it as about 20 is from Francavilla...how weird it was when we found the centre it was about 8 is from the city.... it had this big building in the middle of nowhere... heaps and heaps of ca packs mostly empty.we actually were wondering if it had closed down... then we wen inside and low and behold it was filled with people... I don’t know how they got there because the amount of cars outside didn’t equate to the amount inside... it had heaps of shops, and a big supermarket, but the supermarket was near to empty not sure why it was well stocked... we bought what we needed then heard off to the old city to see the Castle Sant Angelo..

The history of this Castle was pretty amazing originally built in the 3-4th century’s then refuted and added on to in the 14th century then in the 1880’s the Navy took it over and in 2003 the Navy commenced restoration of it... As they restore it they find many artefacts...many were on display but a lot have been sent to one of Itslies museums....

The tour guide only spoke Italian so for the few English speakers they set us up with a 30min video to give us the lowdown, then we joined the tour not understanding anything but could see the sights! He must have been a funny bloke because he had the group laughing lots! It’s a shame they didn’t have an English speaker by the end of the tour there were others joining us who also spoke english and there was about 10 of us who could have done with our own guide.... the tour leader had organised an English speaker to be with us, but he did a runner hence why we ended up with the group... we had tried to use google translate but as we spent a lot of time under the castle floors there was no phone reception and sadly translate doesn’t work with out reception... the need an off line version...

The tour took 2 hours of up and down stairs into dark arched rooms and along the water front near the big bridge.. once the Castle had 5 bastions one was a triangle shape and very long, in 1883 the cut it down to put in the swing bridge to join the little island of the old city to the main land... it change the whole look of the Castle in doing so...

We finished the tour then headed up the street to look at some if the sights, which turned out to be Alleys and heaps of.. many with painted Muriel’s that were very extremely interesting ... even got to see a guy waiting at the Cathedral for his bride to be.... didn’t get to see the bride.. I would have to say these streets were the best ones I have explored..... the buildings so, so tall with amazing 😉 doors 🚪 just loved the whole atmosphere.... then as we walked along the Cittadella walls on the ocean side we could see the amazing old buildings, many now going to wrack and ruin... it was sad to see them in disrepair... but never the less still had so much character.

Time had gone so fast it was after 7.30 and I had to get home to get dinner, so off we went.. back up the highway, through the lovely little villages I had hoped to explore more, but ran out of time...

Another great day had wonderful sights and to finish off with this great little getaway from all the hustle and bustle of life...Leer más