4/29: Explore Martina Franca and a Coastal Boat Ride to Monopoli

 As we walked out of the hotel to go to the main square to meet our local guide, I saw a wisteria that was not a bush but a huge tree, apparently a relative of the kind we had in California.

Wisteria

Walls along the street are used as public bulletin boards
and especially useful for obituaries and funeral announcements.

There was also an ad for a journalist that featured
a number of politcal figures including a few you
will certainly recognize. The woman in the front
is the current Prime Minister. The man to her left
is an opponent but also Minister of Transportation
in her cabinet. The one on the lowere right is
former PM Burlescone. The other 5 are various
Italian political figures.

We walked to the nearby Old Town and met Theresa, who is relatively new to giving tours in English. It was helpful to have Annunziata with us to help occasionally. A lot of the tour was focused on architecture. A lot of the buildings have Baroque features, but there were a lot described as Rococo. My impression of the Rococo I had seen in Germany was that it was complex and exuberant in the extreme, sort of the antithesis of Shaker. Here, they describe it as flatter that Baroque and Baroque as more three dimensional -- more complete figures that jut out from the walls. We also saw a couple of plaques with quotes by Picasso. Each year they feature a major artist in the summer and erect plaques with the artists thoughts.

Archway to the old town.

Even the Ducal Palace has evil-eye masks on the balcony
supports.

Ducal palace, now the city hall on the upper floors.

During fascism, an anti-fascist artist was commissioned
to create a fountain with fascist elements. Instead he built
one with lots of dolphins and was not punished because
the mayor's name at the time was the Italian version
of dolphin.

Martina Franca refers both to a saint (Martino) and freedom (Franca) because the rulers here did not impose feudal law. Most of the buildings qualify as castles, with the largest built by the ruling dukes. The streets were less maze-like than I anticipated too.

This ceramic representation of a flower bud is a token
of Martina Franca. Most cities here have their own
unique emblem.

The front of the main church here. The
art is baroque.

A side chapel whose walls appear to be
marble.

Above and below: two examples of
stone that was painted to look like
marble. When you got close up, you
could tell. It is possible that most, if
not all the 'marble' in this church is fake.

There are a lot of churches here.

A beautiful door

Santa (smoking a cigar)

The frame around the window was
moved from another medieval
structure. Most of what we saw
was old, but much newer than this.

Annunziata likes to fatten us up with snacks. This bakery
gave us something similar to these - a (supposedly) one
bite tart with a cream and cherry filling. YUMMM. Then
she asked to show us the bakery. The bottom of these 3
photos is focaccia they are getting ready to bake.

After our snack, I skipped the next element and lunch -- I had seen the creation of a similar meat product on a different Italian tour -- and I didn't need another meal. So I headed back to the hotel for a break until our afternoon jaunt, and got caught up with photos for my previous posts. Around 3pm, we headed to Polignano for a coastal boat trip south to Monopoli. The fun thing was to visit the numerous small caves along the way. I processed about 35 photos and when  I finished, realized I will have to be very selective to keep from boring you. The caves were quite similar, but a few had unique features.

On the way to Polignano, we passed a house of trulis.
We will learn more about them tomorrow.

There were lots of pigeons roosting in many of the caves.

This is the only one accessible from the land, thru the
hole at the back.

This is the most difficult restaurant to get into, above
the cave system. It helps to be staying at the hotel.

You can sort of see restaurant features
in the top opening

The water in the caves is really clear. Because of the lack
of light, plants can grow here and obscure the view.

The brownish house, just right of the middle has been
red-tagged because the storms last year greatly
eroded the stone underneath.

We had 2 boats for the 10 of us. This is the other one.

Shells embedded in the ceiling suggest water levels
used to be higher

This is sometimes called the McDonald's cave because
of its resemblance to the logo.

The little hole throws a heart-shaped light onto the water
when the sun is in the right spot.

Creativity time. The center rock is said to look like the
head and neck of a dog.

The protruding lump on the gray rock  looks like a
woman's head tilted back with her hair streaming behind.

Fifteenth century Spanish watch tower.

The breakwater into Monopoli is lined with rocks that
look like very fat puzzle pieces.

This is Carlox V castle, the same guy
who had the coastal tower built.

Monopoli was named by the Romans centuries ago when there were no other cities in the area: Mono + Polis = One City. It was a busy town and we explored a bit before enjoying an aparatif. I had my 1st Aperol Spritz of the year.

Now THAT's a door knocker

Original entry to the town from
the port.

There were lots of colorful ceramics I would have been
tempted to buy if I didn't have to haul them home on a plane.

After our aperitifs, we ambled to the restaurant for a delicious meal - started with a carrot flan, followed by grilled zucchini, sea bream, and a small salad. Dessert was tirimisu. I got a bit of a nap on the way back and we arrived around 9pm.

4/28: Hike in Pollino National Park, Transfer to Martina Franca

This was mostly a bus day: 3.5 hours from Sila National Park to Pollino National Park, where we took a hike and had lunch, then another 2.5 to 3 hours to Martina Franca, where we will stay for 3 nights.

A view of the man-made lake (provides hydro power)
as we left Sila.

Above and below: purchase options at a gas
station rest stop: candy pizza and candy sushi.
I didn't try it. The pizza had lots of gummies.

The hike was pleasant and enough uphill to be interesting without being exhausting. We ended at a drop off that overlooked a broad valley and I tossed one of Jim's marbles down the wild cliff. 

Above and below: remnants of holes made by wild
boars in the fall as they search for food to fatten up.
There are wolves in the park who are would-be
predators, but they rarely take on a pack of boars.

This area was heavily logged after WWII by Allied countries
as part of the reparations Italy was obligated to pay as
one of the losers. This stone structure was used to cool
the long tree saws which would break if they got too hot.

Giving Jim's marble to Mt Malvento

This is the cliff Jim's marble went down.

Zoomed in view of a village far across the valley that
can barely be seen near the top of a previous valley photo.

The roads we took were bumpy (my fitbit gave me at least 6,000 extra steps) and curvy, so I tried to sleep as much as I could on the bus, and missed most of the scenery. 

I was awake enough to capture this as we drove along
Ionian Sea on our way to Martina Franca and before
Taranto.

While we enjoyed some of the cleanest air in Europe in the two parks, Annunziata told us about the toll the heavy industry in Taranto is exacting on the 8000 people who work there and the nearby workers' neighborhood.