Day 3 i 4: Monopoli - Alberobello - Taranto - Paola

Hi.

If you had asked us on Tuesday morning, or, God forbid, evening, to sum up the impressions from our trip so far, we would talk about hours of rain, wet socks and wind. But in the end, everything turned out fine.

Yesterday we woke up in Monopoli, had breakfast on sunny balcony of our stone house and set off to Alberobello, a small white town situated three hills away from our accommodation.

On the road, as usual, we came across number of interesting corners, olive trees, figs and rosemary. and the sky – fascinating. The sky just above our heads was divided into a complete apocalyptic black and clear ‘The Simpsons’ blue. Around 5. 6 km from Alberobello, the apocalypse won, and we were sitting in a field shack with only a layer of hay inside, wait for the rain to stop. After 45 minutes, we gave up waiting and continued bravely onwards, reaching our 700 meters high destination half-wet. We walked the streets of a small, white, concrete, sunny city, whose roofs were made of gray bricks arranged in a shape of cones. And then it started raining again. Actually it was a real summer shower. Tornado. And so, unplanned, we interrupt our route and descend to the railway station, which, luckily, does exist in the city. Wet. Wet. Wet. All. Wet.

We’re going to Taranto! (and then we’ll see what we’re going to do). In fact, the idea was to take precedence over the rain that was forecast for this part of Italy until Friday. We arrived at Taranto around 17 o’clock, after an hour ride on a very interesting green-interior train.

Taranto = Brooklyn. The scenery from a Italian low-budget crime movie. Countless glances, no smile; Strange, at least for our past experience. All of the towns that have sea, injustice! But well. We are crossing the first, then the second bridge, and we are getting slightly better impression. We are starting to search for an accommodation for lodging, and that very moment it starts raining. We find a shelter in a tent under an olive tree at the city exit, with the idea that as soon as the sun comes up, we move towards the I can’t remember which city, on the Ionian Sea, from which we will cross to the Tirren side.

We were waking up approximately every two hours, as a result of numbness and the cold; around 4 we finally fall asleep, only to wake up again at 6, get up and start packing. Although yesterday’s sunset seemed promising, today turned out to be very cloudy. All night long, we were sheltered by an olive tree. We started from Taranto we at 7, found ourselves on a very busy intercity road and it soon started to rain again. Under full warfare equipment: raincoat - glasses - helmet, we were rushing up to 10 km / h, due to excessive wind. When you do not have a lot of choices, you do what you have to do, that’s how see our morning ride on the opposite side of the road, under heavy rain, from this point of view.

Around 9 am we ended up at the main train station of the city of Taranto, realizing that there is a huge cloud over entire Italy and that if we stay, we won’t be able to drive for another two days. We spent a good half an hour looking at the map of boot-shaped country and tried to make different combinations, checking the forecast and calculating the remaining time. If you asked us that morning where we would sleep in the evening, our answer would certainly not be the little town Paola on the Tyrrhenian coast. We arrived there by two trains, which took us 7 hours. The original plan was to go to the city of Gioia Tauro and then, if the weather is nice, to drive north to Naples, and if not - to stay there a day or two. When we crossed to this side and finally saw the blue sky, it was relieving. We checked out a beautiful rocky beach that stretches for miles. After a short break, we caught Wi-Fi. We finally looked at the weather forecast, and I talked to a friend who lives in Sicily. So guess what our next destination is 🙂

We decided to stay in Paola until tomorrow, found an absolutely amazing Airbnb accommodation, a property of adorable Alessandra. We took a swim in the pool, ate pasta in the courtyard with a fascinating view of the sea, and we wrote this blog :)

Until our next Wi-Fi,

Ciao!