Bari to Otranto

28/09/2008
We seem to be good at arriving for celebrations! This morning we walked to the medieval old walled town of Bari to the Basilica di San Nicola which was built to house the relics of St Nicholas - also known as Father Christmas. The Baresi fisherman stole them from Turkey in 1087. His remains are supposed to emanate a miraculous manna liquid with special powers and is an important place of pilgrimage.
While walking to the cathedral we could hear what sounded like a thousand drums, and as we drew closer the sound increased. When we arrived at the cathedral there was St Nicks band of drummers belting the life out of their drums - all quite stirring stuff!
The cathedral is huge and the crypt which holds the shrine to St Nick is quite beautiful, I thought it quite awesome but Bob found it quite spooky.
We were leaving the cathedral when a wedding party arrived in a very smart open top car.
We went back to the hotel to pick up our packs and caught a bus to the airport to pick up our car. We were offered a GPS which we gladly accepted. We spent quite awhile in the car working out the GPS and trying to attach it to the windscreen which it stubbornly refused to stick to. Finally got out of the carpark and on the first bend it fell off again!! Touch the screen and the settings would change so lots of cursing went into it. Finally.... got it jammed between the windscreen and the dashboard. Then we had to get used to "Madam GPS" talking to us when we least expected it. "at the next intersection turn RIGHT" and we would talk back "which intersection?" ".... turn around when safe to do so" Oh we missed that one.... Well we made it to Otranto with a few minor diversions.
Otranto on a Sunday afternoon is like everyone had left town. Siesta! Rang our B & B and walked to it to have a look. Very nicely furnished in a Moroccan theme with our own terrace overlooking the city walls. Decided to stay 2 nights. Heaps of stairs to climb of course!
We were starving as we had not eaten since breakfast in Bari. So strolled back into town about 6pm and it was jammed pack with people and had a carnival atmosphere. Everyone was very well dressed and parading up and down the boulevard meeting and greeting and eating gelato. It reminded me of the Victorian times when people did the evening promenade.
There were lots of restaurants but none open. Heaps of open air cafes selling gelato and coffee and people were actually eating gelato while drinking coffee - seemed a bit weird.
We wanted something more substantial than gelato and eventually found a cafe that had mini pizzas for sale. We felt like the new kids on he block as we were not sure what the ordering protocol was. There was a crowd of young people standing around the counter, so we thought we had joined the queue - they looked at us strangely like we were trying to gatecrash there group. Eventually the waitress nodded in our directionad and we gleefully pointed to the pizza and ordered white coffee -"big or small" - big please. So we got our pizza with a small black coffee in a big cup. Bob tried to explain we wanted milk and was told "no that's how it comes". I think it was turkish anyway and undrinkable.
We strolled into the old walled town which was alive and buzzing with people checking out the souvenir and upmarket clothing brand shops. Lots of restaurants here but they were closing up and it was only 7pm. We couldn't believe it! We were still hungry!
We had passed the "Boomerang"(thought that was an omen) a self service cafe earlier, which didn't have any food earlier but now it had some interesting items in the servery, but only a few customers. We made a dash inside, pointed at a couple of items and a carafe of vino and hoped for the best. It turned out not too bad, Bob got a what appeared to be a calzone and mine was like a ham and cheese rice croquette. It seemed like half the town followed us in as the place was full in no time. Slept very well in a nice comfortable bed after last nights experience.