Tag Archives: Southern Italy

Ostuni, the other windy city

November 28, 2014 · by · in Italy · 16 Comments

Italians call it La Citta Bianca–The White City.  I call it L‘altra Città Ventosa–The Other Windy City.  Ostuni (the official name of this white and windy city) is remarkably picturesque from a distance.  We approached by train though silvery rows of olive trees towards a small mountain of whitewashed buildings.  After the friendly owner of our B&B picked us […]

Lecce, Italy: all the putti

July 21, 2014 · by · in Italy, Street food · 6 Comments

Putti wrapped around columns, garlands of putti, putti with pigeons on their heads, gilded putti holding up ceilings, putti coyly offering bunches of grapes, flying heads-with-no-bodies-putti, actual children that strongly resemble putti…. Arrive in Italy and keep going South, all the way down, right there to the tip of the boot.  Did you find a […]

In which we are ripped off and stood up in Bari, but still enjoy the magnificent Basilica di San Nicola

July 9, 2014 · by · in Italy · 2 Comments

We arrived in Bari with a long list of sights to check out, beginning with Basilica of San Nicola.  Bari has a reputation for high crime, and the unsavory scene around the train station certainly put us on edge. Since were travelling without a cell phone, I had arranged by email to arrive at a b&b during a certain […]

In which we visit the caves of Matera

February 9, 2014 · by · in Italy, The Infamous Blue Traveling Poncho, UNESCO World Heritage Sites · 5 Comments

We got on the bus in Naples and departed six hours later in another millennium.  Matera, in the Basilicata region of Southern Italy, has been continually occupied by humans since Paleolithic times.  We were there to see the Sassi di Matera, cave dwellings and churches that people have been living in for over 9000 years.When […]