2023 Italy Part 4

Click HERE to jump to LAST post

Wed 25th, Thur 26th Jan

After a late start drove to Lucera, arrived about lunch time. Weather grey and overcast. Went round Lucera castle, Fortezza svevo-angiona. It was huge, and very little left.

The only inside bit, with a video explaining the different usages made of the castle. Unfortunately in Italian.

The mighty outside walls. Must have been really impressive in its heyday.
In the afternoon, rain returned. Again.
Spent the night in a Sosta camper, shared with a car park. Really noisy.
Following morning, glowering skies, but not quite raining. Drove to the Roman Teatro, building started in 47BC, so really old.
Continued

Drove to Trani. When we arrived, the entrance to Sosta camper was barred, substantial gates. Just opposite was a large, mostly empty, parking area, so we went there. I went round the castle, which was big, empty and very confusing, got lost several times. Italian history is complicated and confusing. The information boards give a part of this history as relates to the place being visited. Fair enough. But still confusing. Anyway, Trani Castle of Empty Rooms.

The seaward side, looking towards the Cattedrale di San Nicola Pellegrino.
Wet and grey. The afternoon burst gloriously into rain, and really pelted down in the evening.
Inside said cathedral, which was built on an earlier church, which was built on an earlier church, which was…..this original one built around 500 AD. Well, wouldn’t be BC, would it….

This, needless to say, is the oldest bit.

A bronze covered door, difficult to see all the details, dating from 1175.

When I returned, a worried Sue told me a man from Sosta Camper told her we couldn’t park here, he didn’t speak English, and told her “Move”. Apparently, he was really unpleasant, and she didn’t want to go in the Sosta Camper because he was so unpleasant, so we moved to a car park in the town centre. Seemed OK, parking cost 2 Euros, as opposed to the expensive 25 Euro Sosta Camper. Proved to be fine.

By early afternoon the rain had returned, belted down again in the evening.

As we were in the town centre, I tried to find a suitable restaurant, but none of them opened before 8.00pm, too late. I had come across this the other day in Lucera. Very Spanish. Talking of which, that is where we should have gone. Sunny in Spain.
Fri 27th Jan
Left our overnight car park, and drove inland to Castel del Monte. The guide books made a big deal about this, an odd castle, building started in 1240, by Frederic II, a name we keep coming across. The castle is eight sided, with a tower at each corner, and clearly not built as a castle as we know it, would be unable to have soldiers or supplies to withstand a siege. The guide book describes it as “one of the most sophisticated secular buildings of the Middle Ages. There are two floors, each with eight rib vaulted rooms, some still lined with marble”.
Well, that’s all there was, loads of rooms.

A very gloomy drizzly morning, the castle looming through the murk.

The interior courtyard.

Later, the drizzle turned into rain quite heavy most of the time. Decided, as we are fairly high, with our heads stuck in the clouds, to head back to the coast, and are now in Bari.
Tomorrow is forecast to be a fabulous day. Cloudy, but no rain. We live in hope!
Sat 29th Jan
And it was! A fine sunny day. Goodness, the world looks a better place in sunshine.
First stop Basilica San Nicola, and a magnificently decorated ceiling.

Also, had a remodelled crypt.

Then on to Cattedrale di San Sabina.

And, like so many churches we have seen, built on top of previous churches. This one on a fifth century church with a mosiac floor.

And, fifth century steps. Must have been very narrow people then!

There is also a castle in Bari, a big imposing affair, but not much about it, and the inside is an archeological museum, mostly pots and other ceramics, many of then Greek, as a result of trade with Greece. Many recovered from a long ago shipwreck.

These are not Greek! The information board did state the origin, but used terms I am not familiar with. Somewhere in the Middle East I think. Certainly very different from the Greek ones.
Evening, sky clouded over, some rain. I suppose we had to have some!
Continued …
The Sosta Camper we stayed in was a strange place, big, with lorry parking, car parking and a collection of workshops. It also had a free minibus service into town. With great difficulty, we managed to find out how to catch it back to the campsite – we ended with an arrangement to be picked up at 1pm. Infact the arrangement worked fine, and we were entertained on the way back with some magnificent Italian driving. We were in a street of parked cars, congested traffic going our way and a contra flow bus and taxi lane going the other way. Our driver went hurtling the wrong way up the bus lane for well over a quarter of a mile, then had to push back into the traffic jam, which resulted in a shouting match with te driver of another vehicle. Most entertaining.
More rain in the evening.
Sun 29th Jan
Yesterday drove to Alberobello, weather forecast for today sunny. Woke to rain. Remained mostly rainy, and very humid and cold. So we found a launderette and did the washing. After lunch, stopped raining. Still cold. Alberobello is in the centre of an area of trilli, houses with unusual conical roofs. Most unusual.

Drove to a Sosta camper on the coast just outside Taranto, so now down at sea level. Not so cold, and the sun came out.

Sunset over a less than attractive beach.
In the last few days, we have been astonished and appalled at the amount of rubbish in lay-bys and along the side of the road. Lay-bys piled with black bin liners of rubbish. I can only assume that people, wondering what to do this afternoon, decide to go for a drive, and toss their rubbish out of the car window as they pass. We were similarly dismayed by the rubbish driving through Romania and Bulgaria en route to Greece, and again in Greece. Seems to be a Southern European thing, although I don’t remember this from Portugal or Spain.
Mon 30th Jan
It didn’t rain today! Actually, the sun shone for most of the day.
We drove to Melfi, a hilltop town with a Norman castle. Apparently, the Norman centre for southern Italy, and the castle is decidedly big, brooding, formidable, everything you would expect from the Normans.

Inside has been sanitised, and turned into a museum over three floors. Roman, ground floor, Greek 1st floor, and medieval 2nd floor.
The entrance contained a remarkable sarcophagus, 3rd or 4th century, described as “Atella and Rapolla Sarcophagi”. Tried looking this up when I returned, but didn’t find very much.

It was huge, considerably taller than me.
The museum consisted of artefacts found in various tombs, over a thousand of them. Tombs that is, not artefacts, of which there were also thousands. The tombs, I think, we’re local to this area, but I was unable, again, to find any information about this.

An example of just one showcase from the multitude.
Very little information about the castle, except that in 1059 Pope Nicholas II conducted the investiture of Robert Guiscard, legitimising the Normans in the south, and Frederick II proclaimed his “Constitutiones Augustales”, which unified his kingdom as a state.
So now you know.
The Duomo was begun in 1155, but rebuilt in the 18th century. Seems not to be of any interest. Except, it was started by William the Bad.
No idea who he was, or, more importantly, why he was Bad.
Cont’d
The road to Melphi was interesting. It started with gently rolling hills, which gradually flattened out over the course of about 50 miles. Stretching away into the distance for the whole of this way where tended agricultural fields, big but not vast. No signs of any activity, no people at all, and no apparent houses, towns or villages, and no obvious places where the farm machinery could be stored. I don’t think we have been in such a huge apparently uninhabited area outside Africa. However, there where isolated abandoned and derelict houses standing in the middle of fields, with no roads or paths in evidence. The houses were quite substantial, all of a similar style, and were at one time probably very nice. All quite unusual.
Before setting off along this road, Sue went into an organic shop for some foodstuff, and I asked her to get me a bottle of red wine. This is what she came back with.

Three litres! And only €9.00. Fortunately very quaffable!
Wed 1st Feb
The last few days have been difficult, realising Beckie is getting progressively worse. Sue emailed the vet in Pescara on Monday, and made an appointment for 11.00am today. Yesterday was a long drive back to Pescara. We had decided anyway that we had visited all that we wanted in Puglia (Italy’s “heel”). This morning we kept the appointment with the vet, and Beckie is no longer. Sad.
I had identified a Sosta camper inland from Pescara, just to park up and recover. Turned out to be a very slow journey, not because of the roads, but because of the speed restrictions, which absolutely make no sense. A perfectly good road, no habitation on either side, crash barriers everywhere, and 50kph. For miles. Then, a narrow road, houses and buildings around, 90kph for 100 yards, then back to crash barriers and 50kph.
Arrived at our Sosta camper, down a very narrow lane, no one about, no where to park up, just several horses and a pig. We found a place to park up for lunch, then set off for the next Sosta camper – there are very few around here. Arrived, drove in and were parking up, when a probably very pleasant chap turned up and told us the site was closed, but he let us stay. No water, it is frozen. We are now in central Italy, 2,600 feet up according to the app, and in sight of the four highest peaks in Italy south of the alps. Quite spectacular, some snow about, much more on the peaks.
We are at a place called Castelnuovo, we have seen many signs to Castelnuovo, but I have now found it is one of the most common town names in Italy. Our Castelnuovo is one of the smallest.
As we drove through the village, there were signs to an “Area Archeoligica”. Couldn’t find anything about it, except is 1.2kms away, so I went and had a look.

The unfortunately very damaged information boards told me it was Peltuinum, a Roman fort and temple, on the route from Rome to the Adriatic. Not sure why they wanted to go to the Adriatic coast, all the entertainments are closed at this time of the year. Even worse, in the summer they are open.

Apparently many of the local churches have columns and stones taken from here.
We have now done with the Adriatic coast, and very pleased I am to, absolutely no desire to return, although Ravenna was a real highlight.
Thu 2nd Feb
Very cold overnight, a heavy frost this morning and surface water frozen. But, not a cloud in the sky, and stayed like that all day.
Set off for L’Aquila, not far away, with snow capped mountains all around. We managed to get into a fine muddle in L’Aquila, not sure how, we were intending to visit an interesting sounding church. To cut a long story short, when we eventually arrived, the road leading to it was dug up, and we couldn’t walk past.
So we continued our journey to Rome, through stunning scenery. And such a wonderful day, the inexplicable speed limits didn’t matter, as we were able to savour the view. The only blight was the impossibility of stopping, those damn crash barriers everywhere.
Rome was a traffic nightmare as expected, out Sosta camper was closed, and now getting on, we went to another, that had no reviews (does it actually exist) and, fortunately, yes it does.
Spent a good deal of time finding out how to use the buses. A very helpful sign tells one about all the passes that are available, and the penalties for not having one. Silent on how to get one.
Fri 3rd Feb
Obtained bus tickets, bus into central Rome. Things went a bit wrong. Not actually lost. Just in the wrong place, not knowing which way to go. Had trouble finding a bus stop, they are not very obvious, just a board on a pole. What I didn’t recognise was the advert on the reverse side of the board, ok when one knows…….
Anyway, very much later we made it to St Peters Square. The queues for St Peters, and for the Vatican were about three hours.

Really surprised so many visitors on a February weekday. As we had been before, we decided to give it a miss. As Sue said, I didn’t actually want to be in there with so many people. So, we ended up wandering round central Rome.

Some very familiar sights. We both enjoyed that wander around, helped enormously that the day was warm and sunny.
Sat 4th Feb
My birthday, contemplating middle age becoming a distant memory. But back to the here and now, and a much more successful foray into Rome. First stop the Pantheon. Although we have been there before, it was close to a church we decided to visit. Getting in was a hassle, we had to book tickets by downloading an app, even though there were not many people around. Had to get much help as it was in Italian, wanted all sorts of info including the size of my left shoe, passwords, but finally managed it.
Sant’Inzio di Loyola
Every surface covered with paintings, sculptures, just incredible.

Me photoing the ceiling in a mirror.
We also went to another church, Santa Maria Maggiore, a bit dark inside, and airport style security to get in.

Very detailed.
We then left our expensive and noisy Rome site, and drove to Lake Bracciano. The Sosta camper we found on Search4Sites, capacity about 30 vehicles. Full! Fortunately, we had passed another site shortly before this one, so went back. Busy, but they had space, so that’s a relief. We both agreed this one is nicer than the full one, so worked well. And, the sun is still shining!

Lunch. And a view of the lake.

Restaurant just down the road, so ate there. Nice to eat out, food adequate, surroundings all rather nice.

Next part →