We came to Vieste because it’s on the tip of the bulge on the heel of Italy and is in a very charming (of course) area. The official name of this area is the Gargano peninsula and it has a large and special national park covering a good deal of the entire region. When researching what to do here, I found a new app that suggested a range of walks through the national park. In fact, the app reveals thousands of walks throughout the world, including detailed maps and real time navigation. It is called Komoot, and I strongly recommend it to anyone hoping to find hikes in any area that they are visiting. Upon further research I discovered that the Gargano National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and that the Umbra forest that is part of the national park is listed as one of the ten most beautiful forests in the world. I’m not certain that the Italian Ministry of the Environment didn’t sponsor the list, but hey, who am I to argue? Kamoot gave me 18 options ranging from 2 km family loops to 24 km treks. I chose the middle ground; an 11 km walk in the dark forest.
We departed Vieste about 16 hours after we arrived and I can’t help but feel that we could easily have spent another day of two on the Gargano peninsula, but that would have been at the expense of seeing other areas in Puglia. Either way, this really was a stunningly beautiful forest, though I’m not certain that it is one of the top ten of the world, or even the top five forests that I’ve walked through.
The first four km or so were along a relatively well-defined route that wasn’t really a path, but just a cleared trail between the trees. There were no signs or posts but we were confident that we were going the right way, despite our history of getting lost in places that you just can’t get lost in. The trail climbed through a mix of evergreen pines and cedars and deciduous beech, oak and sycamore. I was hoping that we might get some pretty autumn colours in the trees, but instead walked over a carpet of coloured leaves. As I mentioned before we went on our cave walk, I love forests and caves. I found myself dropping behind my three friends for the purpose of not hearing their talking, but just listening to the forest. I was doing, what they called, the Gamai Lama. After reaching the top of the long but not difficult incline we found ourselves walking on a flat bitumen road, which whilst very pretty, is the type of walking that we like less. After a couple of km along the road we found a way that was not really a path, that would take us back to the car. This was not the route that the Komoot app had planned for us, but seemed a better alternative than road walking. It was through much denser forest and after the three km descent, we arrived back at the car. Our lungs felt forty years younger.
This forest was truly in the middle of no-where, and only had patchy cell range at best. Where we parked, there wasn’t even patchy service. So we drove back along the road the way that led us here, not wanting to get lost by going forward without knowing where we are, but in retrospect, was the wrong direction
Since we like to get off the beaten track as much as possible, it means that it is not uncommon to find ourselves in places that doesn’t have good coverage or Google Maps takes us in the wrong direction (Find my Cyprus blog for the most extreme example). Eventually I’m going to stop moaning about the shortcomings of Google Maps or the uselessness of Waze outside of Israel and go old school. Paper maps, that not only allow you to pinpoint your location without having to worry about a satellite overhead or cell tower in the vicinity, but also give you a wider view of the area that you are in, relative to the 15×7 cm screen that’s about to run out of batteries. We were heading to the town of Monopoli, but Google Maps kept changing the route, distance and time to destination. Luckily, the road wound through the Gargano National park, which made for difficult driving for the driver, me, but was exceptionally beautiful, passing forests even deeper and darker than what we had walked through, more charming villages, olive groves, luscious fertile valleys with other forms of agriculture, mountains and coastal views. Add in four friends who never have a shortage of things to reminisce, argue, pontificate or laugh about and we were pretty much achieving what we had defined for ourselves on this adventure, which is a little different to past journeys. We were on a road trip.
As we came out of the national park area and had better cell reception, as well as signs to the nearest major towns, we saw a city called Manfredonia. Quite a unique name. We wondered who the Manfred was that gave his name to the town and whether there were any good restaurants there. As we came around yet another mountain bend and saw the coast plain ahead and below us, we also saw Manfredonia sprawling along the water. It’s easy to think that EVERY Italian hamlet, village, town and city are hopelessly romantic. This can’t possibly be the case and here was evidence of it. Manfredonia looked like the sister city of Altona, Victoria. Huge industrial areas, refineries and commercial ports, with oil tankers and cargo ships waiting at sea. We weren’t hopeful in finding anything. Now that the minister of food and drinks had cell coverage, he had the unenviable task of finding a place to eat. He found a restaurant in a town that was a satellite of Manfredonia that he thought might be open. Upon arrival to the beach area where it was meant to be, we saw a sad row of closed restaurants that had never seen better days and the specific place that Google claimed existed was nowhere to be found. Disappointed that we hadn’t found anywhere to eat but not particularly disappointed that we hadn’t found anywhere specifically here, we decided to head back to the main road and hopefully find somewhere that we could at least get a sandwich. Just as we were about to rejoin the state road that would take us towards Monopoli, I noticed a random sign that read “aperto”. I pulled into a makeshift, dirt parking area (“car park” connotates a far too organized setting than the place where we stopped our car) and a paved path leading to the beach. Hopeful, we weren’t.
We arrived to a medium sized restaurant, glassed on three sides in order to better see the turquoise green water and dirty yellow sandy beach that seemed to be a natural extension of the unattractive city a few miles to the North. Neither the setting nor the décor boded well. The two people working at the restaurant seemed surprised to see us, which is fair enough. How many random, 60 something Enlish speaking tourists wander into their place? And they seemed somewhat disgruntled that we arrived at this hour, just as they were about to sit and have their own lunch. And that’s when things started to improve. We looked down at the food that they were about to tucker in to and it looked delicious. Just as 24 hours previously we had wandered into a lone restaurant, in the middle of nowhere and had discovered an ultra-local gem, suddenly it looked like the off-the-beaten-track approach might once again pay dividends. To be honest, it has been extremely rare that this attitude has failed. The worst meals I have eaten, or experiences that I have endured, have unequivocally been at tourist traps. And it turned out that once again, we had stumbled on to gold. As usual, we chose the mixed seafood platter to start with for Yoni and I, plus octopus, since Yoni is an octopus addict. Yoni and I continued with pasta with mixed seafood, but different from each other. Mark had his go-to, fish and Garry is always happy with the vegetables, pasta, cheese and various fried doughs in Italy. The only regret was when we looked over our shoulders to the table next to us. The locals new exactly what to order. They had a metre long raised board, loaded with lobster, langoustine, and more, that made our mixed first course look impoverished. The neighbor’s sea is always greener.
We loaded back in the car ready to resume our journey to Monopoli, with Mark driving and Garry navigating. Even after 50 years of friendship, we still manage to discover new things about each other, especially if we are trapped in a car together on a road trip for three hours. And thus, we discovered that one of us, who will remain nameless, but it isn’t me, is not satisfied with the dryness that towels afford after a shower, and dries his balls and underarms with the hairdryer. Moreover, he thought that this was perfectly normal and was surprised that we don’t do the same. I don’t think any of the other three of us had ever considered this in any way and were shocked at the revelation, especially in its nonchalance. It certainly became a talking point for the rest of the trip, including trying to think of attachments or other uses for hairdryers. I would be very happy to hear if anyone (mis)uses hairdryers in this way or has any other uses for a hairdryer previously unthought of. Upon research, it does appear that there are Facebook groups devoted to people who dry their balls with hairdryers. Suddenly Trump being reelected doesn’t look so weird.
Mark is not technologically savvy, and needed Garry’s help to tame Google Maps, and it still guided us on a backroad, which made driving through the main road of the town of Barletta rather than the central state road both superfluous and uncomfortable for those sitting in the back. Yoni was especially grumpy, as he can be, claiming back soreness along the bumpy road. I put our grumpiness in the back seat more down to the fact that I’m usually in control of the steering wheel, Yoni likes to think he’s in control, full stop, and this led to severe psychological demoralization due to the drop in our status. Garry succinctly said that we were like the two grumpy old men from the Muppets show. I had to agree. In any case, we eventually arrived to Agriturismo Tenuta Chianchizza, where I had booked for us to stay for the 3 nights in the area. I had figured that whilst it isn’t on the Monopoli seafront, but inland a few kilometres, it was worth it to stay in an agriturismo, a farm with accommodation. We’d wake up in the morning to the sound of sheep baa-ing, and have bread, freshly baked by Mama and cheese freshly made by Papa for breakfast. A true Puglian rustic experience. There was clear dissonance between the ideal and the reality. This place was neither Agri nor Turismo. The rooms were fine, I guess, but essentially it was a wedding hall with a few rooms out the back for either drunken guests or frisky newlyweds. It had all the ambiance of sliced white bread. Certainly not a place you want to just hang out in to soak up the atmosphere. So after a very short rest, we travelled into Monopoli, where a pre dinner vermouth, a fine dinner in a lovely trattoria and a night-time wander through the old town looking for artisanal gelato finished off yet another great day.
