Ciao, Puglia

After leaving our trullo in Alberobello, we turned in La Grande Orange at the airport in Brindisi and then caught a train to Pescara, where we spent our first night in Abruzzo.
We had pizza at Pizzeria Gluten Free (yes, that's really the name), where they serve nothing but gluten free products. I’ve eaten a lot of GF pizzas and have tried making my own dough at home, with varying degrees of success, but never have I ever had one whose crust was indistinguishable from a regular wheat flour dough. That is, until today. They used a variety of different GF flours in the mix to produce a crust that was crispy, yet whose rim was filled with air pockets and would spring back when squeezed. Quite amazing.

After dinner we turned in and, in the morning, made our way to the airport to pick up yet another rental car. Once again, Brenda’s desire to drive around Italy in a Fiat 500 was foiled when we were upgraded to a Lancia Ypsilon. Surprisingly, the Italian car has a lot less pep than the Citroen we had in Puglia – I would have thought Lancia, with it’s racing heritage would have been the sportier drive, but such is not the case. I guess I’ll just have to wait for some kind rental car clerk to upgrade me to a Ferrari or Lambo.

Speaking of which, I see more Italian supercars in Vancouver in one day than I’ve seen in Italy in eighteen days. In fact, the only high-end wheels I’ve seen was a Maserati SUV. Go figure.

Our next stop is a four day stay in San Vito Chietino, a small fishing village on the coast where we’ll be visiting with our friend Tash and her family. It is truly beautiful here, but the city is divided into an upper and a lower town.

We rented a very nice Airbnb in the upper level and Tash resides, you guessed it, in the lower town. We had arranged to meet up with her and her sixteen-month-old son, Giorgio, yesterday afternoon and began walking down the main road with its many switchbacks and without any pedestrian sidewalks. Despite the lack of high-performance cars on the road, it seems like most Italians drive like they’re behind the wheel of an F-1 car. I’ll be driving along at twenty or thirty kms over the posted speed limit and cars whiz past me like I’m standing still. Worse yet, when I see them coming up on me in my rear-view mirror, I hold my breath and close my eyes as they always wait until the last possible second to move into the passing lane, missing my rear bumper by inches. Naturally, when driving on winding roads, they are always looking for the racing line, which places a pedestrian on a road with no sidewalks into very perilous position.

Fortunately, after negotiating a couple of switchbacks, I spotted some stairs that seemed to give us a safer route into the lower town, which indeed they did.

We spent the afternoon getting a guided tour of San Vito from Tash and then met up with her husband Alessandro in a little café where we had our first Aperol Spritz apperitivos and plates of local cookies, some made with almond flour that Brenda could eat.

After drinks and a snack, we headed back to our accommodations, which seemed like an awfully long way up when viewed from the lower town. We nonetheless slowly climbed the hundred of stairs to the top, picked up some fruit and veggies at a local market and a couple of slices of pizza and focaccia for me and locked ourselves in for the night.

Tomorrow, we’re excited to be having lunch at Alessandro’s restaurant, Insight Eatery!Read more