From Rome, we flew to Brindisi, in the heel of southern Italy. We chose a self-driving tour of Puglia and started by picking up our car at the Brindisi Airport. We were offered a medium-sized car but opted to stay with the small FIAT Panda hybrid. Our two carry-on bags neatly filled the trunk, leaving our under-seat bags in the back seat. This six-speed little devil was fun to drive. I drove and Jim navigated. Truthfully, I don’t know how anyone could drive all the curvy roads and roundabouts without GPS on their phone (and a good navigator).
Our initial destination was Alberobello, the town known for the trulli. These are round buildings or parts of buildings with the round pointed domed roof made out of slate. We were told that no one actually lives in them, probably because they have no windows and are 18C all year around. They are mostly used for storage (maybe wine?). It looked like the round pointed room was adapted on homes to look like a cupola inside.
Our hotel was in the center of town, walkable, with many restaurants to enjoy. Since we arrived so early, we decided to have lunch nearby. It was recommended by the hotel and we were very pleased. We had a delicious gnocchi, which was more than enough to share. It was accompanied by a beer for Jim and a limoncello spritz for me. We immediately found that the Aperol spritz drink is everywhere, which is why I opted for a different one. It was yummy
With lunch over, we walked through the town, admiring the charm. It is a compact town, but has walkways to show off the trullis. We went into a shop and the owner said we had to go to his roof to see the landscape from that perspective. It was worth the climb. Since, we had such an early flight, we returned to the hotel and relaxed for a few hours.
When we awakened, we decided to go to dinner in town. There is an app called thefork.com that allows you to make a reservation online for a specific date and time. I booked a table for 7:30 at TerraMossa to sit on the terrace. When we arrived, they said that the reservation was for tomorrow, not tonight. DUH! I must have been half asleep. They still made room for us and we enjoyed a four cheese pizza. This would be our go-to meal almost every day.
Pizza is offered everywhere. Some had toppings that we didn’t like, so we stuck with a margarita (tomatoes and cheese), mushrooms (only porcini mushrooms available), or a four cheese pizza.
Now, it was time to go to bed and get ready for a fun day tomorrow.