Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Puglia has brightest seas, diverse art and
architecture, mouthwatering peasant cuisine, kindest people
The ANNOTICO Report
But did you know, it harbors the cove of Porto Badisco,
where legend has it that
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But no other image says
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Farther inland is the Murge,
scorched highlands grooved by canyons, where in the Middle Ages people built cave
dwellings as homes and churches when they fled from pirates. The most
famous are the Sassi in
Art is not a masterpiece in a
museum but a whole downtown in Valle d’Itria
cities such as Locorotondo, or Ostuni
and
Locorotondo is a round nest of a village where everything
is white except the bright splashes of red flowers that overtake its
wrought-iron balconies, and its sculpted baroque portals.
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But you havent seen
Baroque in all its theatrical, indulgent, luxuriant excess until you’ve
spent an evening among the wreaths of fruit and the pinup women sculpted on the
golden limestone churches and palaces of Lecce.
Medieval masterpieces are
everywhere on the coast, beginning with the inscrutable Castel del Monte. The octagonal castle was built by
Emperor Frederick II, one of the most powerful men in the Middle
Ages, in the early 13th century. But nobody quite knows why.
It lacks both the architecture and the location for a military fort, and its
way too imposing to be a pleasure palace.
More.....
Coastal Treasure:
From Associated
Press
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
POLIGNANO A MARE, Italy - Puglia has
some of the brightest seas, most diverse art and architecture, most
mouthwatering peasant cuisine and kindest people in all of Italy - including
strangers who will go out of their way to lead you to one stunning beach after
another on impossibly lapis-lazuli waters.
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Puglia is the heel to Italys boot, and after two weeks spent touring the
region, I felt grateful that charter airlines dont disgorge hordes of
tourists here. These are just some of the reasons:
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I
said put it back, this is a natural park, a stern
father told his son. He was pointing to the octopus that sat with protruding
eyes on the boys shoulders after being plucked from the crystalline waters
at Natural Maritime Reserve of Torre Guaceto, just
north of
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With more than 500 miles of coast on two seas, the Adriatic and the Ionian,
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At opposite ends of this peninsula, I swam in the fingerlike cove of Porto Badisco, where legend has it that
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A few miles north, its all about sandy expanses, such as Punta della Suina, where the setting sun
turns the transparent water pink.
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But its Torre Guaceto that gets my gold medal -
for the baby-powder white sand, the schools of silvery fish flitting from reeflike rock formations in pools of turquoise water and
the scent of pine needles drifting from the pristine forest that borders the
beach.
LIVING HISTORY
No
other image says Puglia better than the trullo, a
rural home thats essentially a whitewashed teepee of small limestone slabs
stacked without mortar, with a cone surmounted by pagan or religious symbols.
They are scattered among olive groves and huge prickly pear cacti in the Valle
dItria, inland in a triangle between
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Of unknown origin and unique to
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Farther inland is the Murge, scorched highlands grooved by canyons, where in the Middle
Ages people built cave dwellings as homes and churches when they fled from
pirates.
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The most famous dwellings of all are the Sassi in
CITIES AS ART
Art
is not a masterpiece in a museum but a whole downtown in Valle dItria cities such as Locorotondo,
or by the coast in
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Locorotondo is a round nest of a village where
everything is white except the bright splashes of red flowers that overtake its
wrought-iron balconies. Ostuni is even more blinding,
though a sea breeze caresses you as you hike up and down its steep inclines and
marvel at the sculpted baroque portals on its whitewashed houses.
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But you havent seen Baroque in all its theatrical, indulgent, luxuriant
excess until youve spent an evening among the
wreaths of fruit and the pinup women sculpted on the golden limestone churches
and palaces of
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By comparison, the medieval downtown of Bari is austere, centered on the
Basilica di San Nicola, built between the 10th and 12th centuries to honor its
patron saint (yes, its the real St. Nicholas, Santa Claus).
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The busy port city is trying to overcome its dangerous reputation, but the only
person that chased us in the narrow alleys was a grocery store clerk with a
cold bottle of water, concerned that ours had become too warm as friends and I
waited for another clerk to make our sandwiches.
ART GEMS
Medieval
masterpieces are everywhere on the eastern coast, beginning with the
inscrutable Castel del Monte. We know the octagonal
castle was built by Emperor Frederick II, one of the most powerful men in the Middle Ages, in the early 13th century. But nobody quite
knows why.
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Isolated on a small hill, it lacks both the architecture and the location for a
military fort, and its way too imposing to be a pleasure palace. The most
evocative hypothesis is that it was an intricate symbol, built around the magic
intersection of astronomy, mathematics and the Christian faith.
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Traveling south, the Romanesque cathedrals at Trani
and Otranto seem to rise from the sea. The latters floor is covered by a mosaic
from 1165 representing the tree of life, a hopeful message on the site of a
massacre - a chapel houses the remains of the 800 citizens who were slaughtered
in the church to where they had fled an assault by Islamic armies in 1481.
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OCTOPUS TO FIGS
Ill admit that the powerfully alcoholic red Salentine wine played a role in my dancing the pizzica pizzica, the local
version of tarantella, one night in the streets of tiny Serrano.
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But the food that went with it at the farmers fair was just as worthy of
celebrating, including Puglias staple, orecchiette
(ear-shaped pasta), as well as horse meat steaks, ciceri
e tria (handmade tagliatelle
with garbanzo beans), fave e cicoria
(pureed fava beans and chicory) and cakes spilling
over with figs.
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Meat, grilled or cured, reigns inland, nowhere more
spectacularly than at Cisternino in trulli land. At night, the absurdly numerous butchers of
this whitewashed village set up tiny tables on the sidewalks and cook to order
whatever you select from their marble counters, preceded by minuscule black
olives, homemade cheeses and salami.
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Seafood, including delicacies such as octopus and sea urchins, rule the coast
in hole-in-the-wall trattorie such as Nonna Tetti in
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I needed similar endurance when gratitude compelled me to start my last dinner
in
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I kept thinking about a verse from an Italian poem that was used on an old
tourism ad for southern
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If you go
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GETTING THERE:
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ACCOMMODATIONS: Skip hotels and stay in real homes on the seaside or in the
countryside. For luxurious fortified farmhouses (called masserie),
try Masseria San Domenico (www.imasseria.com) and Borgo San Marco(www.borgosanmarco.it) - both at Fasano,
or Barsentum near Putignano
(www.barsentum.it.) There are also cheap small
bed-and-breakfasts with earthy peasant meals (www.salentoinbb.com).
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