In England it is the North that are the areas of depravation, and while Levelling up pledges from Boris came to little more than nothing, in Italy, the North South divide is perhaps even more striking.  The landscape is starker, the roads are emptier, there are signs of development that was began… and then stopped.  Leaving husks of buildings dotted about the countryside.  But Southern Italy, and Puglia, where we are now has a beauty all of its own.  And while I much prefer the personalities of Northerners in the UK, I also find Southern Italians friendlier and happy to help.

Puglia might not have the big names of the North but it does have it’s share of history and attractions. Wildflowers have dotted hedgerows right across Italy but we have found them so more prominent and vivid in the South.  Pictures of the conical roofs and house of Alberobello feature heavily in this blog which does bring in it’s share of tourists, but it’s still a place to find some calm and with a park up minutes from the centre of town we rose at six to catch the light, miss the crowds and take in a the mostly clear lanes.  The previous night we also had a small moment of revelation of what life might have been like for the occupants of these houses a hundred years ago.  Friends or family were playing traditional music on the streets and the house opposite was open for people to wander through.  The walls were water stained, the furniture was sparse and the cooking facilities were basic.  It was a far cry from the gift shops and their white washed walls and the trendy micro bars that pay tribute to the past but gloss over it.  Sitting in, the kitchen with the music on the street brings a hint a tough life that needed the community to make it bearable.

We moved on to laid back Otranto, with its laneways rammed full of seafood restaurants while the city walls looked out of the Adriatic Sea, I felt convinced I could see Albania over the water but maybe it was the clouds.  Today we are in a name famous to Australians, Gallipoli, the Southern Italian version though.  I’m writing this under the shade of Pine trees while the wind wafts the scent of the needles through the van.  The wind will hopefully keep the mosquitos at bay today that have plagued Kerry since we hit the hotter temperatures. Poor planning on our behalf, waiting too late to book our ferry, and some unexpected public holidays mean we have to cover some miles and do a bit of back and forth over the next week but tranquillity is easy to find and that’s a worry for another day.  Once this is uploaded, we’re out for the seafood meal we should have had yesterday but were too full to attempt due to too much Pistachio ice cream.