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Italy: You Stole A Pizza My Heart
November 5th
Arrived in Rome and took the express train to Rome Termini station. We looked for something close to the station to do as we had a few hours to use up before our train to Caserta. We walked to a cathedral, Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. We sat outside and watched all the people lining up to go into it. It looked like a fairly large line, but at least it seemed to be moving quickly.
After sitting for a bit, we decided we would get some gelato. Chris went to the gelato shop across the street from the church called Terra. He bought some interesting flavors of gelato. We were able to eat most of our gelato before getting in trouble from a policeman for sitting on the steps of the fountain while eating, so then had to stand to finish the rest of it.
We then decided to take turns going into the church. I went first and walked down a ways to get past all the barriers and then walked through security and into the church. It was quite big and impressive and I took a quick walk through it as we didn't have too much time before the train. We traded and Chris went in next. He thought he had maybe been there before, or maybe it just looked similar to other churches.
At this point, we decided to head back to the train station. We got there a little earlier than we needed to. We waited around to find out which platform our train was on. We eventually got on the train to Caserta. We had a first class ticket, which I think got us a little better seat, about half a glass of Prosecco each, a bottle of water, and a below average snack.
Once arriving in Caserta, we walked to our accommodations, El Centro Apartments. We had a little bit of difficulty finding our room. Once we checked in and got settled, we were both pretty hungry and tired, so we decided to get some pizza. Our first pizza of the trip at La Bolla. It wasn't too busy when we arrived, so we decided to order a pizza each. Chris got one that uses their special technique of frying and baking. It was quite puffy, quite more puffy than a regular pizza would be, and he really liked the sun-dried tomatoes that were on it. I had one with broccoli rabe and a smoked provolone cheese, which was quite good.
They also had a pretty good beer selection, which Chris was impressed with, since when we had been in Italy before, the only kind of beer you could get was Peroni. He had a blonde by Fresh Beer. We also tried dessert, which was again pizza. We got the Lumon, which was a pizza topped with various types of lemon and some licorice flavors. It was pretty good as well.
CM - OLTRE LA MARGHERITA (FRIED & CRUNCHY): Il Casolare DOP buffalo mozzarella, triple tomato sauce concentrate, basil chlorophyll, roasted piccadilly tomato on dough base
CB - RADICI: Two textures of friarielli, ash-baked potatoes, smoked provola from the Sorrento Peninsula, 36-month DOP Parmigiano
November 6th
After breakfast at our hotel, we headed over to the Royal Palace of Caserta. We took a photo from the outside and had to walk a ways back in order to get the whole thing in the picture frame. After taking the photo, we headed inside. The first thing we did was walk up the staircase to the Royal Apartments. The staircase was very grand and it was made of lots of marble. Lots of ornate decorations including a couple of lions on either side of the stairs.
We started our tour around the apartments. It was quite a bit of walking as the palace was very big. We walked through various rooms and we did so at quite a fast pace as we were trying to stay ahead of a group of school children who were then closely followed by another large tour group. We were impressed with all the rooms. The artwork on the ceiling looked like it was in 3D and there was lots of gold paneling and leafing on the walls. Along with the ornate decorations of the room, there was also a bunch of bored people sitting there and watching to make sure people didn't do anything to damage or steal anything from any of the rooms.
We walked through the dining room, the throne rooms, the rooms where people wait to visit the king, the rooms of the seasons, and the library in the billiard room. After we finished the tour of the Royal Apartments, we headed outside to walk around the gardens. The gardens were huge, so we decided the best way to tackle them was to rent bikes. E-bikes were only €1 more expensive than regular bikes, so we rented e-bikes for our tour of the Royal Garden. They were very, very big and we were glad we rented bikes as I'm not sure we would have made it all the way around on foot.
We took a little tour around and then rode up the centre along some channels of water that were brought in from the aqueduct outside of town. There were some little waterfalls and some fountains, as well as some large fish swimming in the pools. We finally made it to the end, and we parked our bikes to go walk around the English Gardens. They were quite big as well, so we thought we'd maybe take our bikes inside, but then got in trouble for trying to ride them. So we changed our plans and rode back around more different sections of the gardens before our hour was up to return the bikes.
After the palace, we headed for a walk around town. We went to the main square, as well as the street with many shops on it. After we did these things, we ran out of things to do in Caserta, so we went back to the room and relaxed for a while before dinner. For dinner, we went to the pizza restaurant that was ranked number one in the entire world. I Massianelli di Francisco Martucci. We waited outside for a while, until they called our name to go in. Once in, we were seated. It seemed like a popular place to go for large Italian families, as there were quite a few children in the restaurant as well.
Once seated, we placed our order. Chris had researched ahead of time what beer and what pizza he wanted, so that we didn't have to take too long to make up our minds. Again, they had a good selection of craft beers, and we picked a couple to try. For pizza, Chris had a pizza with seven different kinds of tomatoes on it, and I had one with seven different types of onions. Both were very good. They both used a cooking technique where the dough was steamed, fried, and then baked. It was very different than most pizzas we had had before. The new pizza cooking technique made it live up to the hype of the number one restaurant in the world. It tasted delicious.
CB - THE 7 CONSISTENCIES OF ONION: Creamed onion, fermented, crispy, burnt, onion mayonnaise (eggless, with soy milk), onion gel, onion jam, fiordilatte.
CM - TOMATO ABSOLUTE: Roasted cherry tomato cream, sautéed Piennolo pacchetelle tomatoes, sautéed yellow tomatoes, San Marzano DOP tomato mousse, dried Piennolo tomatoes, red date wafers, Piennolo tomato jam, Il Mozzafiato Incuso EVO oil
November 7th
Had a breakfast at our hotel again and then checked out and caught the train to Naples. Once in Naples, we dropped off our luggage at a luggage storage place so we didn't have to carry it around with us. We had a bit of time to spare before our lunch reservation for pizza, so we walked around the streets of Naples. It definitely lived up to the hype of being gritty. There was quite a bit of garbage, lots of traffic, and lots of people. Had to be careful crossing the street, dodging people, vehicles, and scooters. I couldn't imagine driving a scooter or a car around in the city.
We first made our way to the castle, which was a bit of a disappointment. There wasn't really anything too interesting to see, nor could you get a good photo of it. So we continued on to look at a church. We then made our way to the Duomo di Santa Maria Assunta Cathedral. Took a quick look around inside. It was also quite impressive, similar to the one we saw in Rome.
We then headed out as we had to make our noon pizza reservation at Bros Ciro and Antonio. We walked there, down the narrow, crowded streets of Naples, and arrived at the restaurant. We were the first customers of the day. We were seated and then ordered our pizza. I went with the classic margherita, and Chris had one with pepperoni and pineapple compote. Both pizzas were, again, very tasty. They were also quite large and were much bigger than the plate they were served on. The crusts here weren't quite as puffy as the ones we'd had previously, but the dough was still very good.
CB - margherita
CM - fior de latte, basil, pepperoni
After lunch, we headed back to pick up our luggage and then down to the ferry terminal. We had a bit of time to wait before the ferry departed to Ischia. Once on board the ferry, we got a seat on the top deck so we could enjoy the views. We both agreed that Naples looked better from a distance than the close-hand experience. We had some good views over the city. We could see Mount Vesuvius, as well as the castle high up in Naples. It took about an hour and a half to get to Ischia. On the way, we saw some dolphins in the distance.
Once at Ischia, we got off the ferry and headed to the grocery store to buy a few drinks and snacks for the next couple of days. We then caught the bus to our hotel. It was a small bus that drove up very narrow, winding roads. It was dark by this point, so it wasn't the most enjoyable bus ride. Once we arrived in Sant'Angelo, we waited for our hotel shuttle to come pick us up. We were glad we took the shuttle instead of walking in the rainy weather all the way to the hotel.
Once at the hotel, we checked into our room and then quickly changed into our swimsuits as we had about 20 minutes before the pools closed. We made our way down to the pools and swam outside in the hot pools. We were the only ones in the pools, probably because it was fairly chilly outside.
November 8th
Woke up and went for breakfast at our hotel. The breakfast was pretty tasty. They had a lot of different pastries to choose from, as well as some good bread, an egg station, a salad bar, and then cheeses and meats. The only drawback was there was a lot of children and families that were quite loud. There was also one family that sounded like they were very sick, so we tried to avoid them.
After breakfast, we decided to head to Baia di Sorgeto, a beach where there's hot water as there's vents coming out of the ground to heat the water. We walked down to the beach. We were the only ones there. The seas were very rough. We found a spot and we ventured in. We couldn't go too far in because we were afraid we might get carried out to sea, given the conditions. We stood near the shore holding onto some ropes, and you could feel the spots where the hot water came up and mixed with the cool ocean water. We didn't stay in for too long, so we started heading back up.
On our way up, one local was coming down to use the beach as well. He didn't speak English, but through his gesturing, we gathered that he was telling us that even though the seas were rough, there was one opening that you could crawl through into a small area where the fence was broken and sit in a hot pool. It seemed a little dangerous to us, but sure enough, we watched him scamper in there. We decided it was probably a better idea just to go hang out at our hotel and use the hot pools there.
We started off in the outdoor pools again, rotating through the hot one, and then we found the button for the jets in the warm pool. They were quite vigorous, and when you sat in front of them, they shook your entire body. After we cycled through the outdoor pools, we went inside where they had various other things to entertain us. We first sat in a hot tub, and then we tried the Turkish hammam. This was the hottest one yet. You stood in a pool of hot water, pressed a button, and a shower of hot water came over you, massaging your shoulders. Next we tried the emotional showers. Chris said it was basically like a car wash. First of all, you stood under a rain showerhead, and then you moved to the next station with some jets that sprayed your body, and then the final station was cold water being poured over you. Chris didn't enjoy that one.
After doing the inside things, we went back outside and enjoyed the hot pools outside some more. After the pools, we decided to take a walk into the neighboring town of Sant Angelo. We hiked all the way back up, and then all the way back down into the town. It was a small little town that was pretty quiet. We walked through the town. There was some shops that were closed, and one restaurant that was kind of busy. We took a look at the boats, so I docked in the marina, and then decided to get a shuttle back home.
We went back up to the spot where the buses departed from. We had passed by the spot on the way into town, and met a very friendly cat who wanted to come and sit and snuggle and cuddle with you. While we waited for the shuttle, we again sat and patted the cat, who enjoyed our company. Our shuttle arrived and efficiently took us back to the hotel, where we once again decided to go back into the pools and did our same cycle again. This time, the sauna was hot, so we added that at the end.
We went for dinner. Originally we were thinking of walking there, as it was about 30 minutes away, but it was starting to rain, so we decided to take the shuttle. We got dropped off, and we were the only people in the restaurant. It was 7.30, so I guess that was a little too early for most people to go for dinner. We had a mushroom carpadel, and a pizza with gorgonzola, pumpkin, and bacon. They were both pretty tasty. We were thinking we would walk home from dinner, but once again it started raining, so we called the shuttle to pick us up.
This is to add on something I forgot. While in the pool, we met a local from Naples. Start again. While in the pools, we met a local from the area. We got to chatting with him and talking about Naples. He told us how beautiful Naples was. Naples was a lot of things, but I would not say it was beautiful. He told us about a few sites we had to see, saying the palace was the most beautiful there was. He also said that Ischis was the biggest island in Italy, which later we wondered how accurate that was as we thought maybe both Sardinia and Sicily were bigger.
November 9th
Had breakfast at our hotel again. Today it was much more enjoyable because there weren't nearly as many people and children. And no sick people. We were able to sit and enjoy the nice views in front of us.
After breakfast we once again went down to the pools. Today was the last day that the resort was open. We enjoyed the outdoor pools, but we didn't do the inside today, as it opened too late for us before we had to leave to catch the ferry. We circled through the hot pool, the bubbling pool, and I did the cold plunge, but Chris didn't.
We checked out of the hotel and got a shuttle ride to the bus stop, where we took the bus to the ferry terminal. Back to Naples, enjoying the views on the way.
Once in Naples, we decided to do a short walking tour. We walked through the streets, saw some busy piazzas, some churches, and Chris got annoyed at how crowded the streets were, with what he said were annoying vendors, even though they did not talk to us.
After we finished our walk, we headed for lunch at Pizzeria da Michele, one of the original pizzerias in Naples. We took a number, and there was a bit of confusion, as we never got a call, but there wasn't room for us, so then we had to wait even longer. It was a bit of an annoying wait, and finally we were ushered inside. We were ushered inside with a group of other people, who were all in the same seating as us. We took a seat at a table, and the waitress came around and delivered things. First of all, she brought placemats. Then she brought cutlery. And then she brought cups. And then she came around and took each table's order. Luckily, it was pretty quick for them to make the pizza, so it came out fast. We decided to share a Margherita pizza and a Marinara pizza, two classics. Both were in the traditional style of Naples pizza. The sauce was a little more mild and a little more watery than the other pizzas we've had for the Margherita. The Marinara pizza had a quite strong taste of oregano and tomatoes.
After we finished our pizza, we headed to the train station and boarded the train to Sorrento. It took just over an hour, but it felt really long, as we had to stand the entire time.
We arrived in Sorrento and made it to our Airbnb. By this time, it was dark outside, and we decided to go and get some groceries, as we'd be there for the next five days. We walked to the grocery store, spent quite a bit of time there, finding all the things we would need for the next five days. We stocked up on a couple of meals, some drinks, and some cheeses. We tried to find some meals that were lemon-based. Our lemon-based pasta, and we also bought some limoncello to make limoncello spritzes. We carried our groceries back to our Airbnb, and went to bed quite early, as we wanted to get an early start the next morning to beat the crowds to the Amalfi Coast.
November 10th
We woke up very early to catch the 6.30 bus to do the Path of the Gods hike. We left our Airbnb at 6am and made our way to the bus station where we purchased some tickets and boarded the bus for Amalfi. We had heard horror stories about how busy and packed the buses would be but it was only us and a handful of other people at 6.30 in the morning making the journey.
It was still dark when we started but by the time we got to the coast the sun had come up and we got to see some amazing views over the Amalfi coast. The bus drove through some very narrow windy roads along the coast on the edge of the cliffs. Every once in a while we had to stop or back up to allow another vehicle to pass us on the narrow roads.
We made it to where we had to change buses to go to Bomorano. We got off the bus and were a little confused about where to catch the next bus. It seemed to be just on the edge of a very narrow road where there wasn't much room to stand. We flagged on the bus and boarded the bus up to Bomorano to start the hike. Once there we started the hike towards Positano. There were some very nice views. There weren't too many people on the trail besides us.
At one point we encountered a herd of goats that we had to wait to pass so we could get through. When we stopped we had some lunch on the side of the trail and took some photos along the way. It was a perfect day for hiking, about 18 degrees and sunny. We got really nice views along the coast looking along out to Capri and to Positano closer to us.
We then reached the small village of Nocelle where there are a couple of little restaurants with lemon related products as well as some very friendly cats. The first cat was a black and white cat that we stopped and patted and then we met two other very friendly cats. One was setting itself along the top of a cement wall and the other one was happy for our attention along the walkway.
We continued on towards Positano. We walked along the road for a little bit and then once close to Positano we encountered the steps. There were a lot of steps going down the hill and down and down and down and down and down and down. We were heading towards somewhere to have some lemon drinks and refreshments. Unfortunately when we arrived it was closed so we had to come up with a plan B.
We searched around for somewhere else to go but there didn't seem to be many options in November of places that were open. We walked down towards the beach looking for somewhere to go and then we saw a huge line of people waiting for the ferry and thought we better buy our ferry ticket to get back to make sure we boarded. We had trouble locating the ferry office.
Turns out it was just one guy with a credit card machine and some paper tickets. So we gave him our money and got a ticket in return. We decided our best bet to eat was to head back up the hill slightly to a little cafe called La Zagara. We were a little hesitant at first as it was much lower reviewed than we would normally go to. I believe it was a 3.8 on Google but they had a nice little terrace, some music, some lemons and some vines covering it.
We ordered some drinks and Chris got a pizza. It seemed like a pretty good way to kill a couple hours while we waited for the ferry to get back to Sorrento.
We took the ferry back to Sorrento. We ended up getting a sunset cruise as we were boarding the boat just as the sun went down. We sat on the top deck to try to enjoy the views. It was a little chilly and windy on the way back. We could see the Amalfi Coast to our right and the island of Capri to our left.
We arrived back in Sorrento. By this point it was pretty much dark outside. We climbed up all the stairs and made our way back to our Airbnb. We took advantage of our rooftop hot tub. It was a fill-yourself jacuzzi tub. It took quite a while to fill, but once full we were able to get the water nice and hot. It had some decent jets.
While in the hot tub, we enjoyed some limoncello spritzes: limoncello topped with Prosecco and sparkling lemon juice. After we had done our hot tub, we made some dinner. We tried to take advantage of the lemon products again, making our lemon basil pasta. We had some fresh bread that we had bought from the bakery on our way back.
November 11th
We had another early start this morning as we took the train to go and visit Pompeii. We arrived just as they were opening and stood in line to buy our tickets. We made our way into the site and started our Rick Steves audio tour. We learned about the history of Pompeii as we walked up the streets to our first stop, the Forum, which was the main square and business centre of the old city.
We followed the Rick Steves audio guide, hitting most of the highlights. On our route, we saw the baths, a bakery, a bar, a laundry, and several houses, as well as a couple of the theatres. Once we were done with the Rick Steves audio tour, we picked out a few more highlights to see. We made our way to the amphitheatre, which seated up to 20,000 people.
We also made a couple stops on our way back, visiting a few more houses, as well as a second set of baths, which by this point was jam-packed with tour groups, and we were glad that we had arrived early. We left Pompeii and headed to the meeting point for our ride to pick us up to go to the winery. The van for the Cattina del Vesuvio winery picked us up and took us to the winery.
Upon arrival, we were greeted and given a glass of sparkling rosé, which turned out to be our favourite wine that we tasted while we were here. We joined some other people from Canada, and we were given a short tour of the vineyards and the winemaking process. The winery was located at the base of Mount Vesuvio, with good views looking up at the dormant volcano.
Once we completed the tour, we were taken upstairs and seated with a nice view overlooking Naples and of Mount Vesuvio again, where we were served a three-course lunch, each paired with some wines. We were given some bread with some tasty olive oil and vinegar that was made on site. We learned later that the vinegar cost 32 euros for a small bottle, so no wonder it tasted so good.
We had a first course of some spinach, carrots, bread, cheeses and olives, followed by a pasta course with meatballs and some ricotta cake for dessert, paired with a dessert wine. Everything was very efficient, as soon as we had finished one course, the next one was placed in front of us. We were then taken by shuttle back to the train station, where we arrived just in time to catch the train back to Sorrento.
Once back in Sorrento, we relaxed and enjoyed the hot tub again.
November 12th
Today we took the ferry over to the island of Capri. We made the walk from our Airbnb down to the ferry port, where we boarded a very large ferry. There was only a handful of people on it and there wasn't an upper viewing deck, so we sat outside and watched the views as we left Sorrento.
Once we arrived in Capri, we figured out where to buy the bus tickets and then went and stood in line for the bus. The buses were tiny orange buses that couldn't hold very many people as they needed to be able to navigate the narrow streets of Capri. The first one was full, so we had to wait half an hour for the next one, which we took up to the town of Anacapri.
Once in Anacapri, we headed to the chairlift to go up Mount Solaro. It was a single chairlift holding only one person at a time. It wasn't very busy, so we got right on it. I got on and then Chris was a little unprepared for getting on after me and said it caught him off guard how fast it was coming. We enjoyed the ride up to the top, admiring the views, and when we got off the chairlift, there was a group of cats waiting to greet us. We petted the cats for a while and then made our way up to the top to the viewpoint.
Once at the viewpoint, you had 360-degree views all around you. You could see all around the island, down the Amalfi Coast, and over to the island of Ischia. The best view was down to the Faraglioni Rocks, and we could watch the boat tours navigating through them. We wandered around the viewpoint for a little while and then caught the chair back down. As we were going back down, a giant tour group must have arrived because we passed a very large group of people coming up one by one, so we were just ahead of the tour group crowd.
We then made our way to a bakery, Beneficio Garlotto, where we had a lemon croissant and a sfogliatella riccia, a local pastry that's flaky on the outside and filled with a creamy ricotta on the inside. We took our pastries and walked to Villa San Michele, a villa that was known for having excellent views. We sat outside and ate our pastries and then decided to take a break at the restaurant there called Billy's Bar. It was on the rooftop of the villa. We made our way up and were seated at a nice outdoor table where we could enjoy the views. It was very relaxing. As we read the menu, we learned that Billy's Bar was named after a monkey that used to live on the property. We had some coffee drinks and relaxed for a little bit before we tackled the close to 1,900 steps back down to the town of Capri. We were glad we were going down and not up.
We walked back down and then continued on to go and visit the natural arch. Once we arrived at the viewpoint, we were quite impressed with the arch as you could get quite close up to view it, and we could see a couple of the boat tours enjoying the view of it from the sea. We took some photos and then decided to head back down to the ferry port to catch the ferry back to Sorrento before it got too dark.
Once we arrived at the ferry port, we sat by the beach and had a few snacks and then boarded the ferry. Once again, we stood at the back of the ferry to see the views of Capri as we left. We arrived back in Sorrento and once again enjoyed the hot tub and some wine and tried to eat up as much of our groceries as possible, as we had originally thought that we were spending five nights there, but that afternoon as we were sitting at the restaurant, we realized that we actually only had four, so we probably bought more food and drinks than we needed to. We drank our red wine, which is a local grape, and also had our Caprese salad.
We decided to go for dinner at Zaza Wine Bar. Once at the bar, we asked for some recommendations of wine. Chris got a red and I got a sparkling rosé, and we shared some bruschetta appetizers. For the main course, we had the Italian version of fondue. It was made with three different types of cheeses and no hard alcohol, probably only wine. We tried a couple more wines with the fondue and we enjoyed the atmosphere of the wine bar. They had a menu that you could request albums for them to play. They played all vinyl and they played some pretty good music while we were there.
November 13th
We had an early departure again this morning. We woke up as we needed to be in Naples for 9:30 to catch our bus towards Bari. We made our way back to the train station and took the slow train from Sorrento into Naples. We calculated that the train averaged a speed of about 40-some kilometers per hour. There were a lot of stops.
Once in Naples, we had a kind of awkward period of time to kill before our bus left. We hung around the train station, couldn't really find much to do, so then went and stood at the bus stop while we waited for our bus to arrive.
We boarded the Flix bus for the three-hour bus ride to Bari. The lady in front of me reclined her seat a lot so her head was almost in my face. Chris was glad the guy's seat in front of him was broken so he couldn't figure out how to recline it.
Once in Bari, we then boarded our next bus to Alberobello. There was a lot of traffic getting out of Bari, but eventually we made it out and arrived in Alberobello where we checked into our Trulli. It looked like a Trulli on the inside, but it was maybe more of a modern one.
After checking in, we went for a walk around town and to grab a snack. First of all, we stopped at Lyra, a focaccia bar where we grabbed some focaccia and sat on the bench and ate them in the town square. We then continued on our tour of Alberobello walking around the narrow streets looking for cats and looking at the Trullis.
Once we saw most of the Trullis, we headed up the street to a large church which we looked at from the outside and then made our way to the grocery store where we bought some things to make dinner. Back in our room, we made our bogoli and then got organized for the next day, which we are doing our first day of cycling.
November 14th
We went for breakfast to the room provided by our hotel. It was quite a good breakfast, it was a buffet that they served you and we really enjoyed the chocolate croissants. They also had fresh squeezed orange juice.
After breakfast we met David, where he dropped the bikes off to us in the little square above where we were staying. We got on the bikes and made our way out of town. It took us a little while to figure out how to get out of the maze of truly streets, but once out we were on our way and we found that the app that we were using to navigate with the map of our route was pretty easy to use.
We rode out of Alberobillo on some small streets with very little traffic, through a bunch of olive groves, passing a few more truly's on the way. Our first stop was the town of Cisternino. Once there we sat on a bench and enjoyed the views and ate a mandarin. We walked our bikes through the narrow streets of Cisternino and came out on the other side where we once again jumped back on our bikes and continued our route.
We had a little bit of confusion as the route took us down a set of stairs. We decided to skip the stairs and try and find a different way down instead and we ended up going in circles in town before we could figure out how to get back on the route again. Once out of the town we carried on back through La Coruantanda.
We then locked the bikes and looked for a spot to grab some lunch. The first place we tried to go to was closed, so our backup choice was La Pizzeria. We had some pretty tasty pizzas and some beer and wine with our lunch. We walked around a little bit and then got back on the bikes to ride back to Alberobello.
Once back in town we took another walk around the truly's and looked for cats. We photographed a few cats and found one playful one on the roof of a truly. Most of the cats seemed scared of people, which seemed a little strange for a town against thousands of tourists.
We relaxed in our room for a bit and then decided to go to the grocery store to grab a few things for dinner. We took another little stroll around the truly's at night. We walked down our street, which had been decorated with a lot of lights and Santa hats, and then grabbed some ramen and cereal and banana for me at the grocery store, which we ate in our room.
November 15th
Had another good breakfast at our bed-and-breakfast place. This morning, though, it was hazelnut croissants instead of chocolate, which weren't maybe quite as good. After breakfast, we met David again and got back on the bikes and gave him our luggage to take to Monopoli for us. We headed out of town in the direction of the Castellana Caves.
On our way, there was one stop on the map by some sort of church building. We turned off and in the parking lot, we were greeted by one cat and one kitten. We sat and visited with them for a while and then headed on towards the caves.
Once at the caves, we bought our tickets and then went and sat in the park and waited for our English-speaking tour to begin. In the park, we were greeted by more cats. A friendly black one came and sat on my lap and wanted to snuggle and purr.
It was then time to start our tour, and we headed down into the caves with a very large group of people. Turns out most of them were still Italian. We made it into the first chamber, which had an opening at the top. It was quite large, and our guide spoke very loudly and told us about the cave system. We made our way down through the rest of the cave system. It was a total of 3km that we walked. We walked through different chambers and passageways. The ground was pretty slippery in spots. They put some mats on the ground, but it acted like more of a slip and slide than traction.
We finally made it into the last chamber, the White Cave, which they said was the most beautiful. The formations had changed from a reddish color originally to a white. The guides shone their flashlights on it to show that it was almost like a translucent type of rock. On the way, the guide pointed out various formations that resembled things. We saw one that looked like a camel, another one that looked like a cone of gelato, and one that looked like a jellyfish.
It took quite a while for the tour, since the group was very large. We were told it would be an hour and 20 minutes, but it took more, about 2 hours. David had told us that morning that it was on Italian time, and he was correct.
After the caves, we sat in the park and ate our lunch, where we watched a lady feed the cats. We then got back on our bikes and made our way to Polignano al Mare. We locked up our bikes and walked along the promenade. We saw the famous beach that all the photos are of, and continued on to a lookout that looked back at the old town.
We then continued on our way to Monopoli. We rode for a short while along the seaside, finding one more cat to stop and visit, and then ran parallel to the highway into Monopoli, where it was again a confusing maze of streets, but we managed to find David and return the bikes and get our luggage. We then checked into our bed and breakfast for the night, B&B Ninfea. The guy showed us around the apartment in Italian. We hope we understood most of what he said.
We quickly left our stuff in the room and then went for gelato, as we were quite hungry. We decided to share a mega, which was a giant waffle cone that you could pick four flavors. We had the lemon, pistachio, almond, and stracciatella. All were quite good.
We ate our gelato and walked around Monopoli, seeing a lot of churches. It seemed like there was one on every block. We made our way to the waterfront and stopped and admired the views at night. There was a photography festival on while we were here, and along the seafront there were various photos that were displayed. One of the exhibitions was someone that photographed people with a week's worth of their trash. I told Chris that if he was one of those people, he would be surrounded by milk jugs and Amazon boxes.
We continued on our walk around the castle. We walked out towards the lighthouse and watched a kid that was trying to learn how to rollerblade along the rough cobblestone walkway. It looked quite challenging, as you couldn't really get much glide on the cobblestone, so it was more like walking on the rollerblades.
We went for dinner at Cardinal Il Borgo. Chris was very hungry, so he had two courses of pasta. They didn't have any vegetarian pasta, so I had an eggplant appetizer, and while he had a second pasta, I had tiramisu for dessert.
November 16th
We went to Cafe Napoli for breakfast, which was included with our bed-and-breakfast, where we got a croissant and a cafe latte and some juice. After breakfast, we headed to walk towards the beach. We walked along the pathway, seeing a couple of cats on the way. Once we arrived at the beach, it was a very small beach, but it was quite picturesque with turquoise green water. From there, we headed back to pack up our stuff before we took the train to Lecce, where we arrived at La Belle Lecce, where we were staying.
We put our luggage in a room and then headed out on a walking tour of Lecce. We walked past several churches, which the town seemed to have a lot of, just like Monopoly. We also saw the ruins of the old amphitheater in the town square, where it looked like they were continuing to uncover more of them, as there was quite a lot of digging going on. We also saw a big castle, which we walked into the courtyard of, but there didn't seem to be a way to get into any of the rooms.
We went for gelato at Gelateria Natural, where we shared a large ice cream cone. This time, we got pistachio, stracciatella again, and hazelnut. Once again, it was the real gelato, where they kept the lids on it to keep it at the proper temperature. We headed back to the room to relax a bit before dinner.
For dinner, we were still quite full after lunch. We'd had lunch before our walking tour at a nice pasta restaurant. Unfortunately, the experience was ruined a bit by a kid watching his phone at a loud volume at the table beside us.
We went for dinner at Focaccia Mi. To get there, we walked through the old town, then out the other side, on a pedestrian street that was full of locals out for their evening, past the Agli. We arrived at the focaccia stop, and it was quite busy, so we stood in line to order a focaccia. I got a pre-made focaccia topped with cheese, tomato, and basil, and Chris ordered a sandwich, which turned out to be very, very large. I was able to finish my dinner in the time that Chris had to wait to get his. We took his across the street to a park, where there was a night market set up, where we sat on a bench while he ate. There was a DJ playing very loud music and vendors selling lots of local products.
November 17th
We had planned to take the bus to Otranto, but being November, the bus schedule was very limited so it looked too complicated to get to. We changed our plan and decided to go to Brindisi. As we were leaving, we ran into the host of our bed and breakfast. He told us that Brindisi wasn't that great. Changed our minds again and decided to go to Ostuni.
We walked towards the train station and had a cafe latte and croissant at a little cafe while Chris researched what to do in Ostuni. He found a bike rental that would drop bikes off to us at the train station, as the train station was 4km downhill from the town. It all worked out pretty smoothly. We arrived in Ostuni and our bikes were there waiting for us. This time we had much more comfortable seats and panniers to carry our stuff in, but no suspension so the ride was a little bumpier.
We had a programmed route that took us down through some more olive groves and along the water by the ocean. On the way down to the ocean, we passed a few cats on the side of the road. We rode a pathway along the ocean past many deserted towns that must be popular only in the summer months. There wasn't much open and not many people around. We rode up and saw an old monument that we didn't really know what we were looking at and then back down through some old olive groves again towards the ocean, completing our loop.
We made it back to the Ostuni train station, dropped off the bikes just in time to catch the train back to Lecce. We bought some oranges once back in Lecce from a little convenience store. Even though they were the big ones, they were very tasty, flavorful, and juicy and no seeds, Chris's favorite.
That night we went to another top pizza restaurant on the world list, Gradi 400 Degrees Lecce. We had some very good pizzas. Chris had a spicy soppressata with some unique toppings including roasted pears, some balsamic vinegar, gorgonzola, and maybe a few other things. I had one called superbellini in the shape of a star. They had baked ricotta into the tips of the star. It was also very good. I said it was my second favorite pizza of the trip and Chris thought it was his third favorite.
Spicy Soppressata: Fior di latte mozzarella, sweet Gorgonzola, caramelised Williams pears, walnuts, spicy Soppressata salami, passito wine reduction, Timut pepper, mint
Superbellini: White base star shaped pizza, tips stuffed with ricotta cheese and pesto of basil, buffalo mozzarella, sweet cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, extra virgin olive oil
November 18th
We walked to Chichi a Granny for breakfast, where we had some delicious pastries and cafe lattes for breakfast. Before we left, we took out some focaccia to go for lunch. We walked over to the park and did a lap through it. It was a bit better than the reviews led us to believe, but still kind of average, I guess.
We headed back to our room and got packed up, and then made our way to the train station. Once there, we were randomly stopped by some police who asked to see our passports. Good thing we had them with us, as we don't usually walk around with them. They checked our passports and then gave them back with no explanation. We bought our train tickets and got on the train to Brindisi.
Once at Brindisi, we walked over to the train station and got a bus that took us straight to the airport. It was pretty efficient. We caught our flight to Rome, and once we landed, we took the train to our hotel, Travesteri Suites. By this point, it was already dark, so we tried to fit in as much as possible for our one night in Rome.
We walked up the main busy street of Trasteveri. Our first stop was a place that sold some deep-fried ricotta arancini balls at Suppli. Chris got two, not really realizing how big they would be. After we stood on the street eating our balls, we went to the grocery store. The Con-Ad was in the basement of a clothing department store. We found the grocery store and bought a few things to take home with us, including some different cheeses and some balsamic vinegar that was thickened.
After dinner, we made our way further into Trasteveri, where we stopped by a street that was known to have cats that were there to help keep the rat population low. We walked down the street and saw a couple of cats napping in their beds or on their sidewalks. We went for dinner at Tonarello. It was a huge restaurant. We followed the host to be seated, and he took us all the way past a lot of people dining, and we were finally seated at a table. We both ordered the specialty of Tonarello. Chris had one that was like a carbonara, and I had one in a tomato sauce with eggplant.
After dinner, we went to the Basilica de Santa Maria and listened to Rick Steves' brief explanation of it. After that, we kind of tried to find the rest of the walking tour, but it proved to be too difficult on the twisty, narrow streets of Trasteveri, so we headed back to the hotel.
November 19th
We got breakfast delivered to our room. We knew it would be delivered, but what we didn't realize is that they would come directly into the room and try and find a place to set down the full tray. I opened the door to get the breakfast, and the guy walked in over Chris's pants and socks that were lying in the doorway to deliver us our breakfast, and then brought us some cappuccinos to follow.
After a quick bite to eat, we once again headed out into Trastevere to try and see a few more sights before our flight home. We headed up Janiculum Hill to enjoy views over Rome. On the way, we stopped at a large fountain to take some photos. Once we got to the top of the hill, the views were quite nice, although it was a fairly chilly morning out. We stood around, looking at the views, seeing lots of different churches, including St. Peter's.
Once we were done with the views, we once again made our way back to the Cat Street. We took another walk down it, and this time we saw three cats who were out napping, including one on the roof of a car. After that, we headed over to the river to see the small island across one of the bridges, and walked along the river back to our hotel to pack up our bags to head home.
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