Well let’s first address the elephant in the room, travelling during the Covid pandemic. I believe the date was October 24th when Canada lifted the international travel restrictions, so this had us looking into travel possibilities. If you have banked travel points, now is the time to look at booking flights, the availability for us was unparalleled, almost all the business class seats were available, it was just a matter of where do you want to go. For those of you who have booked with points usually you need to jump on the opportunities a year out. With this all in mind we looked at our possibilities. As far as Covid is concerned, we knew the airlines and hotels are doing everything to keep travellers safe, we also knew about the European green card, similar to our vaccination card. We also knew that in many sites masks were mandatory, so for us we thought this is really no different than being at home, so we booked the month in Italy and then worried about hotels, where to go in Italy etc. We had always talked about Puglia so then it was just a matter of connecting the dots and with thanks to our wonderful travel agent, Carla Nordin we were all able to come up with a loose plan. Loose, well we did book some hotels but not all as we knew there would be plenty of opportunities after we settled in and this worked out great. Kind of taking advantage of the vacancies like we did some 20 years ago after the mad cow thing in the UK. So, traveling during Covid, well you may not have a choice if you like to travel, with this certain percentage of the population with their heads in the sand, some form of Covid will be with us for a while. Just take the precautions and get our there, we do all have a best before date and at some point travel becomes just too difficult.
At the end of the day this turned out to be a wonderful experience, especially when you find that indeed the world in truly experiencing this pandemic. We found that even in the smallest of towns, restaurants where requiring mask upon entry and presentation of our vaccination cards (green cards in Europe). Italians are very social people and after being shut down for 5 months, they take this very seriously, they do not want to be shut down again.
As far as highlights are concerned, it’s all a highlight, just being able to travel to this amazing part of the world again was the highlight. I will summarize some of our favourites with a select number of pictures, please see below. We had really no must sees and must does, so took the most relaxed approach as possible. The only downside really was our timing here in November as just missed some of the attractions in Puglia, oh well, perhaps another visit will be on the docket.
Europe is amazing with so many of these great cities so close by, we found, for instance, that Rome was very busy on the weekends. Why, well many europeans would fly the between 1 and a half to 2 hours to the Eternal City for the weekend, you just can’t do that from here. A couple hours from here and you might get as far a San Fransisco, whoopee. Not to take anything away from San Fran but it is no Rome, Paris or London, just nowhere close. We need an overnight flight to get to anywhere near any of these major centres, so we go for a month.
As far as the Tiramisu contest that we seemed to be getting into, hey, its all good. There are slight differences between the restaurants, cities and provinces but the one constant is that they are all delicious. No, I have yet to step on a scale since my return, I will wait a week to give my system a chance to reboot, lol.
Thank you for coming along for the ride, we hoped you enjoyed from wherever you were to join us. Thanks for the comments and emails, much appreciated. Stay tuned for our next adventure, we are not sure what that will be at this point but whatever it is we hope you will join us once again, until then, keep thinking about travel…
The famous Trevi fountain with easy access with so few tourists,
The Tiber River in Rome, where Rome begins.
The Adhoc restaurant and the incredible tasting menu, definitely a highlight.
The famous Spanish steps we had all to ourselves, amazing.
The 2,000 year old Pantheon, always worth a visit.
Another must is the visit to the plaza Navona…
A great outdoor/ indoor restaurant in Bari.
A thousand year old olive tree, again amazing.
The heel of the heel in Italy.
Our trusted rental car, the perfect size for medieval villages.
The full moon over a ruin…
A Roman amphitheatre in Lecce.
Visiting the UNESCO world heritage village of Alberobello and the incredible Trulli.
Traffic tie up?
Beautiful visit in to the town of Gallipoli.
Amazing sunset on the beach at Porto Cesareo.
An evening visit to Taranto.
The beautiful grotto village of Polignano del Mare…
Dipping my toes in the grotto beach at Polignano del Mare
Amazing visit to the well decorated, Christmas village of Locorotondo…
A late afternoon snack on the beach
Our Agriturismo, just outside of Fasano, I Posetti
A fantastic sea side dinner 10 minutes from our Agriturismo.
Jan’s grandfather’s home town of Gerace in Calabria
A last minute surprise visit to visit some of Jan’s relatives, first cousins.
The beach at Locri
The hilltop town of Gerace.
Family dinner night on the outskirts of Gerace, in an area where Jan’s grandfather would have walked.
Tiramisu, yum…
A fabulous meal at this restaurant in Villapiano
The magical setting outside our Sassi here in Matera.
Matera
The Salvador Dali museum in Matera, a very worthwhile visit.
We were living, eating and touring in caves for 3 days… Matera, the 3rd oldest continuously populated city in the world, 9,000 years old.
The seaside village of Trani.
Back to Bari and thus fantastic restaurant.
Yup, more Tiramisu…
Ancient Roman walls
The Coliseum in Rome, the iconic attraction.
The beautiful Borghese gardens in Rome.
The Vatican museum is also a must visit while visiting Rome.
Yes, our final Tiramisu… did I say, Yum…
We say Ciao as we fly over the Italian Alps, Until next time Italy… A fantastic visit…
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