Our dear friend, Bella (Dolly Goolsby) is on the go again, this time in Italy. She has graciously allowed us to republish her travel blogs. Enjoy!
Well, friends and family,
This will be my final post from Italy. All good things come to an end sometime, and now I must return back to the United States. What a wonderful almost-three months I have had in Europe, starting in France with the Seine River cruise. That seems so long ago, but it was such a rewarding experience.
Now we are in Monopoli, Italy, spending our last day just relaxing, getting ready to go to Rome by train tomorrow, then we fly home Thursday.
Monopoli is on the southern Adriatic coast, south of Bari, as I mentioned before. The B&B where we are staying is only about a half mile from the sea, as the crow flies, but to get to the sea and the beaches from here, we would have to go into the city, then backtrack, as the area between this place and the sea is private property, with orchards and gardens. I don’t think we would want to traipse through these to get to the beach. But, no worries, the pool here is beautiful and just a few steps from our room. That is where I plan to spend most of today, lounging by the pool.
I will give this B&B a little commercial here. Anna and Vito not only run the B&B, take us back and forth to town, clean the pool, take care of the yard and gardens, but Vito is a Master Chef. On request, he prepares dinners for the guests. We had him make dinner for us on Sunday, and it was marvelous…all seafood dishes, starting with appetizers, through desserts, I think Suzanna counted 5 courses, plus wine, and he makes everything fresh (except the wine), and uses vegetables and fruit from their own organic gardens. Vito also makes all the pastries for our breakfasts, and there are usually 4 or 5 different ones to chose from. Check the B&B out onTrip Advisor, or just look up Tenuta Martinelli in Monopoli for some great pictures and information.
Now on to Arbellobello.
Yesterday Suzanna and I took the train to Arbellobello… (again,more on the trains on a separate blog post. Only in Italy!)
As the train passed through the countryside, we could occasionally see a stone house with the cone shaped roof, out in the middle of a field, or sometimes, closer to the road, we could see where someone was adding on to the Trulli house, by building onto the house with more stone. In some fields there would be 2 or 3 of the house built close to each other.
As we got closer to Arbellobello there were more and more houses, until finally we reached the little town, and saw the biggest collection of the Trulli.
Arbellobello is another UNESCO world heritage site. It is known for its dense collection of small, white stone houses with cone-shaped roofs. In Arbellobello , there are about 1500 of these homes. We spent most of our time there in the older section, which has about 400 of these houses. Most of them are still being lived in; in fact, several of them are rental properties.
We were delighted to see one of the tiny houses with a sign on the front, indicating that the house was a pediatric office. How appropriate! A tiny little office for tiny people.
Me, standing in front of a small doorway..this one had steps leading down into a basement, a very steep, narrow staircase. Glad I didn’t have to go down there. It was very dark..
We had lunch in a ristorante that had started as a Trulli house, but then enlarged. Pretty fun!
By the time we got back to Monopoli, we were hot and tired. An hour in the pool revived us, but thank goodness I had called Anna earlier and made a dinner reservation. Once again, Vito prepared a wonderful meal, with seafood. This was entirely different from the meal the day before, his seafood risotto was so delicious. I simply must get him to share the recipe. I don’t know how I will do that, but I will try!
So, now, arriverderci. If I get ambitious, I will tell you about trains, planes and other forms of transportation. One must be brave when traveling!
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