so long, southern Italy.

The next day, seeing as we had a little time to kill before the wedding (and were well-located in Fasano, at most a 20-minute drive from most of these places, thanks to yours truly, whose research actually got the location right, for once!) we struck out for the seaside town of Monopoli, where we found the hottest, stillest weather yet. (Some of the other towns were hot, but offered both occasional shade and breezes; Monopoli, not so much. Sooooooooo sweaty.) But hey, fortress! And, of course, it's ridiculously pretty.

A little Liberty.

Heading into Monopoli's historic center.

Sooooo many taralli in a bakery whose oven-room door was flung wide open, the better to distribute the overwhelmingly delicious scent of baked goodies with. (Actually, I'm sure it was to get a cross-breeze in there, but still. Very effective sales technique.)

All these towns got a clock tower. Monopoli's is from the 16th century.

Frescoed, 11th-century crypt in the little church of Santa Maria degli Amalfitani.

The nave and aisles in the church above are from the 12th century (sheesh).

Some slightly more subtle lights on some very nifty between-building buttresses.

The castle of Carlo V, completed by the Spanish in 1552 (and incorporating a previous Roman wall, a medieval convent, and a Norman/Swabian castle partially destroyed in 1414, of course).

I don't know if that's a shop or a house or whatever, but I want to steal it and live in it and tend its ridiculously healthy balcony petunias for ever and ever. (Also, you could probably be friends with the people next door and use their awesome bourgeoisie balcony for cocktail hour..is what I'd do.)*

Wooooo, more buttresses! I guess I'm just fascinated by these things 'cause in no way are there buildings in the US that are old enough (or close enough together) to have them. They're neat.

I can assure you that I'd never, ever be brave enough to try to drive a car down the streets of Monopoli--most of which I'd assumed were for people only--but these brave souls were plunging ahead in their Smartcar. Even in such a tiny vehicle, they still had to make it a 3-point turn to get around the corner and into this street.

Next, it was over to Polignano a Mare, which turned out to be the beach destination in the area. (Good Lord. So many people, everywhere.) 

Polignano is also home to a portion of the Trajan Way, a Roman road from the third century BC.

Interesting fact: on the cliff edge in the distance, there's a platform for a Red Bull diving competition, and it can only be accessed through a private residence. (Unless you paid me absolutely obscene amounts of money, I would not have sandy/drippy divers, along with whatever production flunkies might accompany such a competition, tromping through my house.)

This used to be the town hall. I think it's now a restaurant and some sort of lodging, but the neat part is that that 19th-century clock is still wound by ropes.

Surprise! Polignano is full of winding, whitewashed alleyways. Uniquely, however, this small corner of town had been generously decorated by a local poet/artist.

Obnoxiously full of beach-goers, to be sure, but daaaaaang, if it ain't super pretty.

And with that, we headed back to Fasano to prepare for the wedding. 

Which was held here, next to this lighthouse. (Neat.) It was beautiful and elegant and sweet, but as it wasn't my wedding, I won't post photos of the bride and groom, both of whom looked absolutely fantastic (and very happy).

And the reception...oh, my. It was held at this gorgeous old farm, in the middle of this field of absolutely ancient olive trees, which was probably a center for olive-oil production at some point in time. It was beautiful and charming and magical, and, on this night, was set up for eating. There were little booths all around three sides of this massive, white stone patio--kinda like a street food festival, but classy--and they were full of food and drink.

There were not one, but two salumi booths: this one with various sliced prosciuttos (and some hard cheeses, of course)...

...and this one, with multiple types of salami (and more cheese--at least 5 different kinds!).

There was the marinata booth, with all manner of delicious seafoods...

...which was between this, the raw seafood booth...

...and this, the yakitori (most popular) booth. In that cabinet, in case you're wondering, is a couple of kinds of sausages; some pork belly; and several types of seafood, all for grilling.

There were also a few beverage stands--one for craft beers (and cheese) and two for water, wine, and bubbly--but obviously, this was the most fantastic booth of all: THE CHEESE PEOPLE. Not only were there plates of smoked mozzarella, and mozzarella with tomatoes, and all manner of other forms of mozzarella in front of them, but she was handing out the freshest ricotta...

...and THIS MAN WAS MAKING FRESH MOZZARELLA. RIGHT THERE. I'm not going to lie to you, I stood here, mouth agape, for probably 5 minutes, watching this guy. I was not subtle, but that may have been the most glorious thing I've ever seen in my life. Because cheeeeeeeeeeeeese.

And there were people circulating through the crowd with plates of various fried things (chicken, fish, veg)...and those were the starters, people. After some speeches and a little dancing, we all sat down and had a three-course meal of fregola pasta with veggies and seafood; some insanely good ravioli filled with eggplant, stracciatella, and almonds, in tomato-arugula sauce; and zucchini-wrapped fish fillets with prawns and veggies. 

And then, after more toasts and dancing (the band--and especially the male lead singer--was good!), the desserts came out. All the booths from earlier were suddenly covered in a mind-boggling array of sweet things, including various cream-puff iterations; freshly-filled mini cannoli and lobster-tail pastries; tiny baba al rhum cakes (holy smokes, so much rum, though!); all manner of marzipan- and fondant-covered cakes; fresh fruit; the wedding cake itself, of course; and one entire table covered in massive jars of candied almonds. (In Apulia, they're called confetti, and there were at least 10 different kinds, my favorite being the amarena--sour cherry and chocolate. HOLY MOLY, I could have eaten kilos of those. In retrospect, we should have bought any and all that we could find on our explorations the next day.)

Massive olive tree by night.

As Mike and I are old, we called it a night before the cocktail party started up (1:30? 2:00-ish?), and so were in slightly better shape than the friends-from-Zürich with whom we met up with the next day to explore Cisternino--a town we'd seen referred to as a "gem" on innumerable tourist publications, and therefore had to see, in order to determine whether, in fact, it was--and Turi, the wee town to which we'd relocated for our final night in Apulia.

Cisternino: yet another place in southern Italy in which I'd like to have a holiday home. (Actually, I don't think we've yet encountered a city in Italy where I wouldn't want a holiday home...)

I love the rather haphazard stacking of things in these cities.

Quiet...

...and so pretty.

Back in Turi, where we had the most darling B&B (tremendously friendly owner! amazing AC! compact, but sleeps 5! 2 bathrooms! a balcony! plus a darling breakfast nook, and all in a gorgeous building with an arched stone roof!)...

...we also found the rather spectacularly large (at least, for such a small town) Palazzo Marchesale, the history of which dates to Norman times, but the current form of which comes from the 17th century. (The guy on the far left here was selling veggies out of his car trunk, and I think the rest of these gentlemen were just hanging out, giving each other a hard time.)

Some nice baroque details.

Inside the palace courtyard.

Another civic clock tower, this time in red. (And this time from 1892.)

Interesting coat-of-arms spotted on our wanderings.

Art Nouveau pile near our B&B, just begging for me to buy it and fix it up. (Actually, it wasn't for sale, but a girl can dream.)

On our last night in Apulia, we were fortunate enough to be invited to a party at the residence of the groom's grandfather for dinner. Among other things, dinner included fava puree; the best cooked broad beans I've ever had; sandwiches made of beef that had to have been stewed for at least a day (so...fantastic...); and sangria made with the local peaches. (All followed by trays of various ice creams that made me want to collect them all.)

I guess I forgot to mention that said party was in the courtyard of a 16th-century castle ruin, which, you know, just happened to be on the olive-oil- and fruit-tree-producing property that the groom's grandparents bought however many years ago. (Produce was the selling point, and the castle merely an afterthought.)**

The next morning, we bid a sad adieu to our B&B, then caught our flight from Bari to Milano, where we had enough time before our train home to fit in a meal (and some browsing) at Eataly. On our way back to the train station, we came across these fantastical apartments:

...which I'd actually read about a few years ago, but never realized they'd been completed. (Amazing. Want.)

One last treat at the train station:

Gahhhhhhhhh, my new favorite thing, especially in the summer heat: crema di caffe, or espressino freddo, which is espresso blended with cream and sugar and then frozen like an Icee. Man, oh man, is it heavenly, and I must have had at least 10 of these during this particular trip.

And with that, we headed back to Zürich, with plenty of olive oil and taralli in hand. Thank you, Apulia and Basilicata: you were marvelous.

What I'm reading: I know, I know, I've been hopelessly unhelpful in this category for a loooong time, but I feel like my current reads are worth mentioning. Those are, concurrently, The Road to Little Dribbling, by Bill Bryson, and I Hear the Sirens in the Street, by Adrian McKinty, the former of which periodically makes me cackle out loud (oh Bill Bryson, how I love--and 100% identify with--your curmudgeonly thoughts!), and the latter of which--based in Troubles-era Northern Ireland--is the latest in a long, long line of UK-based crime novels on which my friend Lindsey got me started. And then promptly addicted. (You may not believe this, but the best, by far, have been those written by Robert Galbraith...a.k.a. J.K. Rowling. It's insanely unfair how she can be so good in two such different genres! Supposedly she's working on another in that series, and I cannot wait for its arrival.)

Up next: yet more London and Barcelona. Maybe. I don't want you to get bored of those places, though--we certainly haven't!--so we'll see how I feel.

*Ok, no, not really, I don't want to live there. A), because the doors are way too small for my husband, and B) the heat is oppressive, even right there on the beachfront. Nope, nope, nope. But it is so, so pretty.

**Um...I guess this is just how one lives in the heel of Italy. Sign me up, please.

finalmente, apulia.

Leaving Matera behind (sigh), on our way into Apulia (or Puglia, to us Americans), we stopped in the actual middle of nowhere at the area's most spectacular rupestrian church, the Crypt of Original Sin (so-called due to a depiction inside of the fall of Adam and Eve). This thing was only officially "discovered" in 1963--naturally enough, by members of the same organization that revitalized Matera--at which time the cave was being used as a shepherds' shelter. This place contains a cycle of Benedictine frescoes from the 8th or 9th century, and the unknown artist has been nicknamed the Flower Painter, due to the abundance of red poppy-like flowers all throughout the frescoes. Naturally, no photos allowed, but you can find plenty on teh Interwebs.

The crypt hangs on the edge of this ravine, which is spanned by a railroad bridge that actually connects to nothing. (The thing definitely stands out in this rather flat, pastoral landscape.)

Funnily enough, the landowners are the keepers of the crypt, but their primary business is winemaking. One has to stop at the winery to visit the crypt, and who can turn down a free tasting on the way back out? Not us, that's for sure. We snacked on taralli and local cheese and sampled their beverages, which feature a fresco from the crypt on the label. (And yes, before you ask: we did, in fact, bring home a few bottles of their really tasty white.)

In the winery's entry hall, there's a reproduction of the Madonna figure from the crypt. Look, I'm sure it was the style--or maybe even symbolic of something--at the time these things were created, but those buck teeth are really unfortunate.

While Matera had been my number-one destination in southeastern Italy, trulli country was a close second. The oldest trulli in Puglia probably date to the 16th century, but many are much newer. Legend has it that, originally, these buildings were meant to be temporary, so that they could be quickly dismantled in order to avoid taxes by visiting Neapolitan landlords, but most likely, their stacked-stone walls and roofs were a matter of practicality in this climate: warm in the summer, cool in the winter. Behold, the amazing and fantastical trullo!

LITTLE CONE-TOPPED HOBBIT HOUSES. That's what they are. There are thousands of these things, both free-standing and dotted across the landscape...

...and clustered particularly thickly in the town of Alberobello.

Gah, so adorable.

The symbols painted on the roofs generally have either religious or astrological meaning.

Alberobello even has a trullo church.

As I said, these things are all over the countryside, in varying states of repair, and plenty are for sale (want, want, want). What's entertaining about that is that they're listed by how many cones they have.

Hee.

After sweating our faces off in Alberobello* (and having lunch in a trullo restaurant, as one does), we decided to go sweat somewhere else, and headed for the gorgeous, quiet little hilltop town of Locorotondo. (Look, I don't know how people get the stereotypical far-away shots unless they're parked on the side of the highway or tromping through someone's fields, and I wasn't willing to do either, so here's what it looks like on the approach.)

Naturally, the view from the park at the entrance to old town is fairly expansive.

From what we could tell, the historic center of Locorotondo is small and entirely pedestrianized, and consists entirely of the most picturesque little winding cobbled alleys.

Apparently, this type of pointed gabled roof (which looks pretty standard to an American...) is specific to Locorotondo. (Most other buildings in the area are flat-roofed or are trulli!)

Just. Too. Pretty. (And positively rife with flower-covered balconies.)

A little baroque for ya.

I am quite aware that I am a city mouse, and could not possibly survive in such a wee little quiet place, but Locorotondo tugged at my heartstrings. It was just so peaceful and beautiful and charming, and even a little breezy and shady, in that ridiculous heat! But we had our next B&B to find, so we headed down the hill and into Fasano, another tiny-but-charming place that was ideally situated for visiting all of the places I planned to sight-see. Dinner that night was at La Locanda di Martume, a darling little place in the center.

We started with this, a glorious local-meats-and-cheeses platter (that's capocollo, smoked pork, Val d'Itria salame, pecorino fresco,  mozzarella, ricotta topped with almonds, and caciocavallo), followed by pasta with eggplant, tomatoes, pesto, and pancetta for Mike, and orecchiette with zucchini-mint pesto and tomatoes for me. 

I feel a little bad that we spent 3 nights in Fasano, but didn't really see the town itself. There's some pretty stuff there!

The next day, after coffee and pastries from a cafe down the street from our B&B (that was the "breakfast" part, and so lovely!), we headed towards Ostuni, another stunning hilltop city.

In the lower, newer part of town, we found the column of St. Oronzo, the city's patron saint (who, according to tradition, saved the city from the plague in 1740), right next to the base of a 15th- or 16th-century Aragonese guard tower.  

Also stopped in to see the archaeological museum, which is in a church.

Among vast collections of pot sherds, they also have a few prehistoric skeletons; this one is from roughly 26,000 BC.

In the upper city is the Scoppa arch from 1750, which connects the bishop's palace to the seminary palace...

...right in front of the cathedral, the current form of which dates to the end of the 15th century.

This thing is lined all the way across the front and around at least part of each side (from what was visible, anyway) with about a jillion little unique carved faces. Unreal.

Inside, there's nothing terribly exciting, except that the nave is way misaligned from the choir. (And I could find neither an explanation for that, nor even a mention of it, anywhere. Mystery abounds!)

View of olive trees and the Adriatic from near the cathedral.

Ostuni's another one with narrow pedestrian streets and ridiculously lovely whitewashed buildings.

Too pretty.

We stopped for lunch at Osteria del Tempo Perso, which, it turns out, is in a cave. (Yessss.) They brought us a small amuse bouche of baccala and eggplant fritters, and then Mike had a bowl of wheat berries topped with cheese sauce and black truffle, followed by prawn and tomato pasta. I went for the roasted octopus with chickpea puree, and we shared a bowl of almond gelato with dried figs and San Marzano liqueur. (The rest of the food was great, but that dessert was otherworldly good.)

Next, we decided to poke around Martina Franca for a bit, and what a lovely, lovely place.  My only regret was that we parked in a space with an hour time limit. Needed more time there. (That place would be my HQ next time, since it's a slightly bigger city, and appears to be quite friendly and bustley.)

Outside the walled city (in the regular city), we found absolutely tons of lights set up. (No idea whether this was for anything special, or if Martina Franca is just always like this.)

Once we found our way inside the city walls to the historic center (yes, yet another walled hilltop gem), one of the first things we stumbled across was the opera society...

...which was holding a rehearsal of Monteverdi's Altri Canti d'Amor right then and there. Apparently, it was in preparation for Martina Franca's annual opera festival, which is held in the (outdoor) cloisters of the baroque San Domenico church. Where they were practicing, complete with staging, orchestra, and even a couple of people singing from the second-story balcony. Most remarkable, however, was how entirely normal that group of people looked, and yet how genuinely incredible all of their voices were. (Especially this one rather diminutive guy who looked like he could be Ken Jeong's brother, and had this massive baritone that could knock one's socks off.) (No photos/video were allowed inside, but they said nothing about recording from just outside the door, ha HAH!)

Ahem. Moving on. One of the more unique piazzas we've seen, Piazza Plebiscito/Maria Immacolata. That crazy curved building runs all the way around behind us, to the right.

Baroque face.

Martina Franca is just beautiful. Mostly-pedestrian, cobbled streets; white buildings with a splash of color here and there; all manner of intriguing alleyways and tunnels-through-buildings...

...some amazing baroque touches here and there...

...and a few incredible views (oh, hey, Locorotondo). Want to go back.

Dinner that night was at the rather upscale Il Fagiano, up the hill from Fasano in the selva (a fancier community in the woods--it reminded me of Carmel a little bit!). The place looked like it was set up for a wedding reception--matching flowers on all the tables, a long (empty) buffet table in the corner, plenty of nice silver and elegant tablecloths--and it was, except that the wedding partiers didn't arrive until well after 10:00 PM, and so we were the only people in the joint (well, also with a really awful American family, unfortunately, to whom we tried our best to provide a quiet, polite counterpoint) for an hour or two. However. We had an unexpectedly grand feast there, and really lovely service. We finally broke down and ordered the appetizer sampler to share--keeping in mind that most other samplers we'd seen were, at most, 5 dishes--and ended up with no fewer than eleven plates of starters on our table. There were puff pastry with pate; riso venere with fonduta; pecorino with tomato jam; prosciutto crudo; tomato focaccia; quail eggs with black truffle; eggplant mousse with tomato sauce; octopus with zucchini; seared tuna; marinated salmon; and marinated shrimps. Everything was good, although we just about killed ourselves on appetizers alone. Thankfully, we'd both had the foresight to only order pastas after that (although, frankly, at that point, they were entirely unnecessary, but too late...!), and Mike had a really excellent cacio e pepe, and I had some whole-grain casarecce with caramelized radicchio, tomatoes, and caciocavallo. No dessert, of course (no room, sadly), but we did get a free shot of limoncello in the deal. Mmmmmm.

Well. I kinda thought I'd be able to fit the rest of the trip into one post, but as I always end up using way more photos than planned, I'll close this one here. With that meal. Sigh.

Up next: the wedding itself; a couple more unbelievably pretty southern Italian towns (yes, it's all really gorgeous); and the journey home.

*Did I mention that the average daytime temperature down there, everywhere we went, every day, was about 35 C/95 F? I'm a summertime girl, for sure, but there have been few occasions in my adult life where I have sweat like that.