Today we were having a democracy morning. As I have stated, Yoni and I have mostly shared the trip planning duties over the last 15 years and we institute differing forms of benevolent dictatorship. Sometimes there is a need to allow our subjects some personal time, rather than be led from A to B to C and so forth. Yoni and especially Mark had work commitments on this morning so a democracy morning made sense while they were off-holiday. Mark, whose career included the civil service, diplomacy and Prime Ministerial spokesman has developed a new career as a podcaster. He is actually the moderate half of a podcast team. His podcast partner makes Trump look like a bleeding heart liberal. In any case, the program is recorded on Wednesday mornings, which is why the studio apartment that Mark had been staying in wasideal for turning into a makeshift studio. He was unavailable for holiday until 11. Yoni just had a business call in the morning (and later in the afternoon, too, so we had to work around that later in the day). Given that we tend to have very busy trips, constantly rushing from one leisure activity to another, it is always nice to have a morning off. I was happy to wander the streets of Monopoli, see the port and especially visit some churches unhindered by uninterested co-travellers.
So our day started at 11, where we drove off to meet Susan’s friend Jane, an Anglo Israeli living these past months in her apartment in Lecce. Lecce itself is described as the Florence of the South, though of Baroque grandeur rather than Renaissance. It was great to have a semi-local show us around the historic centre. I’m not going to, for the tenth time, describe this historic centre as charming or quaint. It is indeed grand and regal. Yoni remained at Jane’s apartment for a business zoom, and caught up with us a little later. Whilst wandering the broad streets of Lecce we passed the Duomo, one of the most famed Baroque churches in Italy. Unfortunately we didn’t go inside as you had to buy a three site ticket for the Duomo, Cathedral of Saint Mary and Basilica de Santa Croce and there was no chance in the world that Mark, Garry nor Jane were going to “waste” their afternoon seeing three churches. My usual church partner, Yoni, was zooming, and thus, unavailable. I would love to go back to Lecce with Susan, but I fear that she too is of the “one church is enough” school of thought, similar to my other friends.
To be fair, wandering around Lecce and sitting in the Piazza Sant’Oronzo with an early afternoon Aperol Spritz was not a bad alternative to church gaping. Once Yoni caught up with us and Jane led us to her favorite local restaurant for lunch, I was almost able to forget that we were missing Lecce’s most famous landmarks.
Jane had mentioned that there was a small Jewish museum in Lecce that she hadn’t seen. If we don’t have unanimous agreement about visiting churches, we almost never pass up on the chance to learn about the Jewish history of a town we visit. Upon arrival we were informed that we could take an hour and a half private tour of the museum and the Jewish quarter. Without going into everything we saw and heard, our excellent guide, was a non Jewish local woman who earnt our deepest respect for her knowledge of Jewish customs, especially those related to Jewish life here in Lecce and in the surrounding Salento district over the years. The tour was fascinating, educational and an unplanned surprise. Anyone coming to Lecce should include a visit to the museum and a tour of the Jewish quarter, as much as seeing the other grand monuments the city is justifiably famous for.
As close as the four of us are and how little tension there is amongst ourselves, (except maybe some strong political divergence) it was great having Jane as a new travel companion for the day, especially as she is very different to us. Having her as our guide was refreshing, giving us a perspective of Lecce from an ex-pat who wasn’t fully absorbed yet into the city.
By the time the tour finished it was early evening. We walked Jane back to her apartment and headed back to Monopoli, glad for a less intense but super interesting day. The trip back to Monopoli was uneventful, barring a potentially earth shattering challenge. Mark and Garry are always very happy to be led. They are both happy to be told to be at a meeting point on a given date, at a certain time, and they will enthusiastically be there. Mark is always happy to let others do the planning, though he does like a politically historical monument thrown into the mix. In general, knowing what we will be doing interests them less than just us doing fun things together. On the drive back to Monopoli, I challenged them to plan our next trip, potentially to Sicily in October next year. This idea was met with dreaded silence. But within twenty four hours Garry, aided by AI, came up with a vegan camping trip of Sicily where we are to climb Mt Etna twice. This may be his idea of the perfect holiday but he will learn to take his cronies into account. Seriously, I would love to go on a trip that is not of my or Yoni’s making. Though a vegan, mountain-climbing, camping expedition may need some fine tuning. Maybe it’s his way to convince us not to let him do the planning?
All that remained of the day was finding somewhere for dinner that wouldn’t be a let-down on our last night, and especially after last nights feast. This proved to be a challenge for the minister for food and drink. We had a late-ish lunch so didn’t need a big dinner. Good pizza would be perfect. With nose firmly planted in his telephone screen, he led us to a closed pizza restaurant. We have had very many Seinfeld situations over the years and here was another one. Four middle aged men wandering hopelessly around the streets of an Italian city, being led blindly by someone who actually isn’t looking at the surroundings but at his phone 2 inches from his nose, searching for a restaurant. It’s been said that Seinfeld is a show about nothing. And here, the banality of wandering the streets was both fun and funny.
After finding at least five restaurants that were either closed or just didn’t look “right”, we stumbled upon La Locanda dei Pesctori, in the middle of the historical centre’s tourist area and conveniently 20 metres from our B+B. Its proximity to our lodging is the best thing I can say about it.
We should have been suspicious when the restaurant’s staff were all wearing the same sweatshirt, which at another establishment might be a sign of discipline and uniformity. But here, when the sweatshirts all advertise 5 tourist restaurants and a boutique hotel, you should start to suspect that foreign tourists and not locals were their target audience. Seriously, am I meant to find it encouraging that this restaurant is part of a chain of average (I’m being nice, here) tourist restaurants? The menu looked normal enough, but the mixed seafood platter hadn’t seen the sea since the shrimps were caught off the coast of Vietnam before they were frozen and shipped to Europe. The pizzas came out of the kitchen not more than two minutes after they were ordered, hinting (yelling??) that they may have been, shall I guess, pre-prepared and dare I say, pre-frozen? I have mentioned more than once how difficult it is to get a bad meal in Italy and voila, we found one. In a tourist trap. Read the Tripadvisor reviews and the place is described as a local gem, which attests to the fact that we, whilst tourists, are not the clientele they generally cater to. For me, there’s something almost perversely satisfying in having a poor meal in a tourist trap. It confirmed to all of four us that the local restaurants that don’t see many tourists are our preferred and correct choice, even if sometimes things get lost in translation and you get an enormous mixed fish platter rather than one fish when you order solo pesce.