Gallipoli

Our primary reason for our one day stay in Brindisi was to pickup a rental car at the airport there. Strangely, although Lecce is a much bigger city, there are no car rental agencies there, so we had no choice but to detour north before heading to our next stop, Gallipoli.

After we checked into our Brindisi hotel, I put my hand in my jacket pocket and realized I had not handed in the keys at our Lecce hotel. fortunately, Lecce was on our way to Gallipoli, so we called the hotel and told them we'd stop in on our way through and return the keys. D'oh!

Being used to travel in Canada, I sometimes forget that not every map is on the same scale as the ones back home. Looking at the map of Puglia, I figured we were in for a good two to three-hour ride to Gallipoli. Much to my surprise and joy, the entire ride from Brindisi to Gallipoli, including our stop in Lecce, took only an hour and a half.

We booked an Airbnb apartment right on the coast, a fifteen-minute walk to the old town, for four nights. Once we got inside, looked the place over and saw the location, we immediately booked two additional nights. Our host had left us a huge plate of fresh fruit on the kitchen table and, just off the kitchen is a very large deck that looks out onto the water and the old town in the distance.

Once we unpacked our bags and ate a few pieces of fruit we walked the fifteen minutes into the old town and did some exploring. The city is charming, ancient and quite beautiful. Its location is central enough for us to make various day trips to further our exploration of the Puglia region.

The only odd, and somewhat unnerving, thing we saw in the city were two effigies, seemingly of nuns, hanging above the street. I'm going to have to do some research to see what that's all about.

Hopefully the townsfolk will be a little more tolerant of a big bald Canadian.Read more