Adventures with Julia

September 17, 2023

This was our last day at the Masseria Trapana.  We have enjoyed having several days in the quiet countryside.  Today we drove back toward Otronto and south along the Adriatic coast.  Our plan was to enjoy the coast line and see the beaches along the way.  

The route was mostly high above the sea and very rocky.  Where there were housing settlements, the traffic was very congested and the beaches were not close.  The countryside was so rocky that the vegetation was sparse and dry.  We were disappointed in the drive, even though we did see a few rocky coves with small sandy beaches.  

 The high point of the drive was our lunch stop at a place called Lo Scolo in the village of Marina di Novaglie.  It was a charming place overlooking the sea and a popular swimming spot with no sand, just boulders.  I had local lobster and Mark had sea bream.  The lobster was superb—tender and sweet.  I probably will not have it again as the price, which I learned when we got the bill, was astronomical.  Glad I ate it before knowing the cost.

After lunch we drove to the tip of Puglia and got on a small boat with 6 other people.   First we motored up the east coast through the usually rough water of the Adriatic.  The boatmen stopped several times at various caves to show us points of interest.  After the first couple of caves, we were ready to be finished as there was nothing special to see and the caves were too shallow to enter.  Eventually we turned around and headed south to the place where the Adriatic and Ionian seas meet.   Almost instantly the water calmed down.  Turns out the Ionian See is always calmer than the Adriatic.  We saw a few more caves and stopped twice to snorkel and swim.  Mark and I had not intended to swim, so we watched the others. 

About 5:30 we were back at the dock and on our way north by the inland route.  We had a couple of mis-directions returning home but made it safely by 7:30, as it was just getting dark.  We went directly to dinner, had a light meal and headed for showers and bed.  We agreed that other coastline drives were far superior, such as Highway 1 in California, the Amalfi Coast in Italy and Hwy 28 and 89 around Lake Tahoe.

This was the side deck off our bathroom. It had a nice view of the countryside and was pleasant in the early morning before the heat got to it.

September 18, 2023