We are leaving on Wednesday October 9th on a long week in Puglia ITALY with our kids and their spouses.
Tom Scalici is the host on this trip. We leave from Kennedy Air Port Oct 10th and return to Kennedy on Oct 20th. We will stay at a resort in PUGLIA ITALY.
As the adventure unfolds, I’ll keep you posted, if Journo works!
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As the leaves start to fall
The car is ready
And we are off to Allentown for tonight, then to Kennedy
Airport tomorrow and off to Pagliaro Italy!
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We are in Allentown, Leigh Country Club, Bon Voyage dinner, Flying to Italy tomorrow!
Achilles’s, our waiter, mother lives near Puglia and we look forward to introducing ourselves. Probably mid week. She lives a couple hours from our hotel.
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Last minute preparations. Luckily Sarah retained a few Hair Salon skills while preparing to be a nurse.
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Snowing in Denver, the plane is at the gate, so are Lisa and Chuck. Will it leave Denver on Time?
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Lisa and Chuck arrive at Kennedy with a few minutes to spare before our flight to Milan. A snow storm in Denver slowed their flight by a couple hours, traffic on Long Island made the drive from LaGuadia to Kennedy a challenge, but they made it! With maybe ten minutes to spare. And their luggage made it too.
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Getting here was fun. But a long day! Our connection from Milan to Bari was several hours late.
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At last we leave Milano for Bari, after four hour delay in Milano Airport. We look pretty good for 24 hours or so on airplane and or limo’s or airports.
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It’s Saturday! And we find ourselves in a beautiful Italian Resort. Built in 2005, but replicating one built centuries earlier, on the Adriatic Ocean.
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We celebrated Lisa and Chuck’s 23 Wedding Anniversary here! A cave! Yes a real cave along the Ocean. Right out of a movie set. Unbelievable!
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After breakfast on Sunday Morning, we took a little walk around the golf course and to the beach. We stayed though lunch and a couple of us went swimming in our shorts. The weather was about 75 and the water about 65. Very pleasant and very surprising, I didn’t even bring my swim suit?
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Sunday afternoon we drove our Fiat Gigantino van to a near by village for gelato and a little looking around. Amy selected a nice restaurant for dinner, but we couldn’t find a parking place for our van, so we returned to our resort for pizza and adult drinks. On our way home we found a grocery store and bought snacks and wine and beer. About 60 euros. A great deal compared with the resort prices. And tomorrow is Monday!
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Patricia greets us each morning in our apartment with breakfast. We could get very comfortable with this service!
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Update: Here are names of the restaurant, etc.
Ristorante Grotto Palacio
Polignano a Mare
We are staying at Borgo Egnazia, Puglia Italy
Today, we went back to Polignano a Mare.
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Our ride and drive team for this week. Tom at the wheel and Chuck as navigator. Amy and Lisa are calling the itinerary! Sandy and Dick are passengers!
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Alberobello is a town of Trulli houses. Conical roofs of stone. An early tax avoidance scheme. When the ‘key stone’ is removed from the roof, it all falls down, creating a pile of stones. When the tax collector showed up, the citizens collapsed their homes, No Tax.
It took about six months to re stack the stones into a roof!
The driving is exciting and difficult. Narrow, rough roads in a large wide Fiat Van. No ones blinks! It’s a constant game of ‘chicken’. It is not unusual to have merely inches on each side. Tom is doing a great job of getting us around the Boot of Italy
Today, Tuesday, we went to Matera. City of caves! It is one of the most interesting and unusual and memorable destinations in Italy. It has a distinctive cave-dwelling district. We spent several hours with a guide and ate lunch in a cave restaurant.
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We welcomed today with ‘no Patricia’! Patricia’s day off! We had to make our own breakfast, how sad...
Then our GPS decided we had been in Italy long enough to understand Italian so it decided to give us the verbal hints in Italian. Luckily our navigator has become familiar with the terrain and the language. So familiar that he recognized a Frenchman trying to send his soup back at lunch by describing it as ‘dirty water’! Reminded us of Commissioner Dreyfuss, except no bandaid on his nose.
Our first stop: A Winery
We picked up a few bottles of wine for local consumption.
Winnery Cat, snuggled with Tasha during the presentation.
And we traveled on to lunch
And before returning to ‘home’, we stopped for a gelato. (Becoming an afternoon tradition)
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Just when you think the day’s adventures are over, you have another adventure.
Today, we had a wine tasting, then a nice lunch, the restaurant was almost impossible to find, as usual, but the lunch was fun. (Remember Comander Dreyfuss returning his soup, ‘dirty water’?)
Anyway, the kids met a bar tender last evening and her recommendation for dinner for tonight was followed.
Not so easy to find. Getting to 150 feet was easy, but then? As we backed up a dead end street, Lisa and Chuck got out to search. No luck! Lisa went into a Florist shop to ask directions. A lady emerged smiling with her hands over her head, ‘follow me’! She got in her car, we got turned around and followed.
A few minutes, a lot of turns, later she had us in a parking space near our restaurant. There, her kids joined us. What fun! LOST AMERICANS!
They left with enough of our money for an ice cream, I hope. We thanked them and went inside.
What fun!
Wednesday evening, Good Night!
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Thursday we took our longest road trip, Gallipoli and Lecce.
Very old limestone construction, cathedrals in the center, narrow streets, no easily identified pattern to the streets. Most of what we have seen has been restored since the end of the Second World War and tourism is the economic driver. Very small cars have replaced the swarms of Vespa motor scooters of the past, but there are still plenty of Vespa’s and look alikes. But the cars are very small, and the drivers play ‘chicken’ with ease. Smart for 2 is a large car in this environment.
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Our dinners are adventures, whether we stay on or plan or fall off our plan, we are enjoying our dinners.
We are averaging over 10,000 steps each day. Tasha’s rebuilt heart is going very well. I am so happy this worked out for us.
I didn’t vote for dessert tonight, so the waiter gave me a tiny spoon to share with the other’s dessert.
This was Friday night, we fell off our plan and into a hot singles bar. Something for everyone, it turned out.
And an octopus!
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The trip winds down
And the airplane is on time!
Boeing 777’s have very big engines, and they fly so nicely too.
We are back! Stayed overnight at the TWA Hotel at Kennedy Air Port. Another adventure.
A successful adventure. Thanks to all.
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