The trabocchi coast and Gargano peninsula
Garry duly arrived at 8.15, completing the make-up of our 4 person troupe. After a rather unappetizing breakfast, which included the weirdest cup of coffee I had ever tasted, we took a morning walk around the town of Vasto, highlighted by a promenade above the coast with beautiful views of the beaches and blue water 150 metres beneath us. As to be expected, another charming town that was different enough from the other charming towns we hadseen. Once we were convinced that we had seen most of what the town had to offer and we’d had a cup of good coffee to wash down the breakfast bad coffee, we headed off. On the subject of coffee, I always thought serving bad coffee was a punishable crime in Italy, akin to spitting on the flag in other countries. If this is so, the owner of our B+B should be looking over his shoulder in fear of the coffee police.
This part of southern Abruzzo’s Adriatic coast is marked by many trabocchi, which are sort of huts on stilts over the water that are connected to the shore by a jetty. The huts have lots of fishing poles jutting out from them, so they take on the appearance of giant spiders over the water. These trabocchi fishing machines were the traditional means of fishing in the area. Today many have them have been turned into restaurants. Our first stop of the day was Termoli, about 20 km along the coast, on the same Adriatic coast, but in the region of Molise. We passed many trabocchi along the way.
If Vasto was charming, then Termoli was wholly elegant. If the historical centres of most Italian towns look well maintained but very lived in and as if they haven’t changed for many years, the historical centre of Termoli looks as if it has been spruced up and maintained for the jet set, but in a really nice and authentic way. It doesn’t look fake, just classy. We saw a very nice looking restaurant, with Michelin recommendations (not stars) whose external walls had been painted sky blue. However, they’d left patches of the bare, original wall unpainted, as a design feature, as if it was saying “we’ve painted our restaurant to make it beautiful and attractive, but we haven’t forgotten our origins and it’s incorporated into who we are”. Very impressive. The fort is beautifully restored, there’s a trabocchi and many of the houses and alleys look as if they were painted white only yesterday. Termoli’s other claim to fame is the narrowest pedestrian throughway in Europe. At only 34 cm wide, A Rejecelle proved challenging, but possible, for my rotund girth.
If Mark had some issues with ordering last night, it was Yoni’s turn to be grumpy this morning. For the most part, he does the planning for our trips, disallowing democracy and only marginally taking plebian input into account. He has become a little more liberal over the years, occasionally telling us what to expect with more than an hour’s notice, allowing a minimal amount of feedback to his decision making and even occasionally sharing planning duties with me. This trip I was the benevolent dictator, taking responsibility for the planning, with slightly more liberal leanings but agreeing with the general attitude that democracy leads to chaos. Even if I delegated him the role of minister of food and drinks, he was obviously having some problems being led, rather than leading. Sometimes a wise leader has to let a subordinate let off some steam, so he led us around Vasto and Termoli
Two historical centres in one morning, as different from each other as they may be, is enough. It was time to head into the Gargano Peninsula in Puglia and to the Fontana restaurant on the banks of Lago di Varano, a salt water lake on the northern side of the spur that juts out on Italy’s heel. We arrived at 12.30 to be told that the restaurant opens at 1.00. This was fine by us, as it allowed us to walk along the paths next to the lake and get a feel of in the middle of nowhere Italy. La Fontana restaurant was super rustic, in keeping with the on-a-lake-in-the-middle-of-nowhere setting. Super rustic is of course good, not bad. Authentic, local and fresh, with no frills. It hadn’t taken Yoni and I long to discover that almost all restaurants in the area offered an antipasto of assorted local delicacies that was a great way to try a bit of everything, mostly but not exclusively from the sea and always for two people. Each place’s offering was a bit different but almost always had fish, octopus, squid, shrimps and mussels. Typical treatment would be pickled, salted, fried or raw. Today we chose to share a mixed grilled seafood platter as our main course, which included eel, fresh local tuna, prawns, langoustine, and a whole sea bream . Mark had a pasta for his first course so didn’t want a large meal for the main course. One fish is all he wanted. We ordered “solo pesche”, thinking the solo meant only one. Unfortunately between the waitress’s broken English and our broken Italian , it was lost in translation and Mark received an entire mixed grill fish platter, without seafood but with sea bass to go with the sea bream, eel and tuna. Not wanting to insult the chef, we managed to finish enough food for six people between the three of us. Sometimes Garry’s vegetarianism saves him from gluttony. And the far too much quantities of food, with wine, came to the grand total of just over 100 €. A ridiculously small amount for the freshest, simplest, most delicious meal imaginable.
The drive from Lago di Varano to Vieste, where we were staying the night took us along the coast, at times right next to the water or seaside towns and at others up and over cliffs overlooking the sea. We drove past the beautiful forest of the Gargano national park, which we would be walking through tomorrow, fruit orchards and lots of olive groves. But the most unique sight was driving past an eerie, twisted wild olive forest of which I have never seen before.
It was almost dark when we arrived in Vieste , so after a short check-in it was time to see our third Italian seaside resort town for the day. And it was no surprise how different it was from the previous two. The streets were narrower and more cobbled, it had a more old-world feel to it but was still well kept, not disheveled. We followed the rampart walls, overlooked another trabocchi and then climbed to the fort at the top of the hill. It turned out to be a naval installment, which shouldn’t surprise us as Vieste sits on the eastern cape on the eastern peninsula jutting into the Adriatic. We descended the hill and walked around the seaboard. If we were any closer to the sea we would be in it. And as we rounded a corner, the local fishing harbor lay out in front of us. And at the top of the docks, on the wharf, sat five white tables, just for us, waiting for us to order early evening Aperol Spritzes. The daytime temperature had been around a pleasant fifteen, but now the sun had set, it dropped to below ten quite quickly. But nothing was going to stop us from sitting and having a drink opposite a fishing port in southern Italy.
Life is good.
