We head on south from Campagna towards Brindisi, but not before Lori has a small steak dinner.
We ask the waiter if people finish these and he says “Of course”!
Our route takes us across the southern part of the Apennines -the mountain range that runs down the center of Italy. The terrain is beautifully alpine and the area seems remarkably remote, green and unspoiled. We come down from the heights and press towards Brindisi.
We are planning to stay in one of the hill towns near Brindisi. These medieval towns are very characterful with narrow alleyways and white-washed houses. This area is renowned for its food and wine and we are looking forward to trying both.
Our little town, Carovigno, is the least fashionable of the main hill towns but is clearly working on improving its presentation. The medieval street pattern means three things: 1. you can’t find your hotel, 2. you can’t park anywhere near it and 3. you have to twist and turn your way in the car to get there. We get lost; we ask; we eventually find it and it is utterly charming.
Our plan is to spend part of the next few days working on necessary boat stuff snd then enjoy ourselves in the afternoon and evening. A major advantage of having a car is that we can load up with provisions at the hypermarket and transfer them easily to the boat.This works pretty well.
True Colors is in the water and all the major work on her has been done. Her topsides do not look particularly clean but they’ve just had a major storm here so we will ask them to do it again and add some deeper cleaning to get her looking her best.
Of all the hill towns, Ceglie Messapica is our favorite - it is less sophisticated than Ostuni but no less charming and has some wonderful restaurants. We go back to one of these - Cibus - that we visited last year. The food and the ambience is as good as we remember it.
At the other end of the experience spectrum, we go out for pizza in Carovigno one night and find that it is karaoke night at the restaurant also. Pizza and karaoke - strange. Only our lack of Italian saves us from participating and then only just!
We finally transfer ourselves to the boat in time for our scheduled June 1 departure. We know that we won’t leave on this date but it is only minor things that will cause delays and compared with previous seasons and almost everyone else’s experience we look like we will do well.