Monthly Archives: September 2013
Puglia Biking – Overview
Based on the advice of the self-guided bike tour company we used for our 2011 Catalonia bike trip (which really was the best one we’ve done), Puglia was the target of our trip this year – the heel of the boot in Italy:
Within Puglia, we biked 8 days for more than 340 km and stayed in five different towns. Here’s a cartographic overview of the bike trip:
We flew into Bari, spent the first night in Conversano, then worked our way south, to Alberobello, Ostuni, Otranto, and then back-tracked to Lecce. We biked every day but one (you’ll understand why when you see the Masseria blog entry) and did loop rides when we stayed for two nights in a town. This turned out be a great strategy, since we were able to stay in one place for a couple of days and get to explore more after riding each day.
Each day’s ride was pretty leisurely – usually around 35 to 45 km (with one 80 km day along the Adriatic), and we’d stop for lunch with a couple of glasses of vino della casa at a town along the way, so the post-lunch portion of the ride was pretty mellow. The time remaining was still ample for exploring each town, since we wouldn’t eat dinner until at least 9:00. As a result, we also got a good feel for the social rhythms of Puglia – the towns were always deserted between 5:00 and 8:00, then quickly turned into a packed social scene by 10:00.
Puglia Biking – Jetlagged in Conversano
Because we arrived in Conversano in the early afternoon, an option available to us was to ride to Polignano a Mare – a fishing village on the coast. Despite the fact that we hadn’t had any sleep in more than 30 hours, we exercised this option. (Lisa, by the way, is a machine – she rocked the route and navigated by Braille all the way to the Adriatic, caroming off the stone walls that lined the roads.) The next day, we rode to our next destination – Alberobello.
Actual travel date: September 1. 2013
Puglia Biking – Alberobello
As we approached Alberobello, the trulli houses had reached critical mass. Much of the town was comprised of preserved trulli, including a very touristy area on one hill and purely residential trulli on the other.
Actual travel date: September 2, 2013
Puglia Biking – Valle d’Itria Loop Ride
While in Alberobello, we did a loop ride through the Itrian Valley. This was undoubtedly the most interesting ride, primarily due to the two kickass little towns we ended up hanging out in during the day – Locorotondo and Martina Franca.
Actual travel date: September 3, 2013
Puglia Biking – Olives, Fountains, and Figs
We experienced three things consistently during each of our 8 days of riding – olive groves, fountains with potable water, and roadside fig trees. The first is self-explanatory (although one of the very cool things in Puglia is the preponderance of groves of massive olive trees that are hundreds and hundreds of years old). The second is likely relevant only to bikers in the area – there are public fountains with potable water both in towns and in some of the most unlikely places in the middle of nowhere, much to our relief during our loop ride from Ostuni.
Finally, the fig trees. I was completely oblivious to these, but Lisa turned out to be particularly attuned to the little snack machines. At some point during most of our rides, I’d look back, and she’d be gone. A few minutes later, she’d ride up, grinning, with a handful of ripe figs that she spotted. They were great to have on the ride, particularly since they were plucked fresh off a tree. (This also worked for almonds in one instance, which was great.)
Puglia Biking – Ostuni
After the trullifest of Alberobello and the Valle d’Itria, we rode south and east, toward the Adriatic and the white-washed town of Ostuni – La Città Bianca. We celebrated our 15th anniversary here, which was great – Ostuni ended up being one of the best experiences of the trip.
Actual travel date: September 4 – 5, 2013
Puglia Biking – 50 Miles to the Masseria
Our experience in Ostuni was outstanding – so much so that we figured the upcoming cities and accommodations would be a let down. Although our next destination, Otranto, may not been quite so overwhelmingly charming as La Città Bianca, the volume increased to 11 in the accommodation category. We stayed at a killer masseria – a fortified farm house on a country estate unique to Puglia. Ours wasn’t fortified, per se, but as soon as we got there, we knew we would be skipping the next day’s loop ride just to soak in the experience.
But first we had to get there . . .
The journey from Ostuni to Otranto was the longest of the trip: we loaded our bikes on the regional train down the hill from Ostuni’s centro storico and traveled first to the little town of Squinzano, south of Brindisi, then hauled ass for 50 miles down the Adriatic coast to the oasis of a masseria.
Actual travel date: September 6, 2013
Puglia Biking – Otranto
The penultimate city on the trip was Puglia’s very cool port city of Otranto. We biked over the next morning after our 50-mile ride down the Adriatic coast to check it out, then hustled back to the masseria to hang out for the rest of the day.
Actual travel date: September 7, 2013
Puglia Biking – Lost in Translation
Outside of the medieval centers of the old cities, when we’re on the road, we don’t typically get lost on these bike trips. But, holy crap, we go all over the place trying to find our destination hotel or route starting point in the old towns. It’s really frustrating when it happens–particularly arriving into a new town, and the only thing between our current sweaty selves and lounging, scrubbed clean, with a couple of glasses of prosecco is the damn hotel location.
However, it’s somewhat comical after the fact, particularly when you get to see your attempts from the GPS output from the unit you brought over with you . . .
Here’s trying to find the hotel in Alberobello:
The hotel is top right, near the residential trulli area. We decided that looking all over the place on the hill to the south would be a better bet, apparently.
Here’s our desperate attempt to find the hotel in Ostuni:
Frankly, the way we ultimately found our way to the hotel was when Lisa spotted their little tuk tuk driving some guests up the hill into the historic center – centro storico:
And, although we haven’t gotten there yet in the blog posts, here’s our feverish attempt to find our hotel in Lecce:
We typically stop for a leisurely lunch in a town on the way during our rides, but we rode straight through from Otronto to Lecce and were hungry and thirsty when we arrived. We could not wait to sit down and relax for a late lunch, but these towns totally close down at 3:00, and it was almost 2:00 when we arrived. I actually turned off the GPS unit before we found it because it kept beeping and I was so pissed.
One of the reasons it took so long to find our place (we had directions, but they never really help after you’re in the maze of tiny streets in the centro storico) was that we knew that it was right across from the celebrated baroque basilica, so we were looking for that. The problem is, as you can see from the photo, there’s a big ass church every 200 feet in Lecce and all of them look like cathedrals or basilicas. So, we kept riding around and around these churches looking fruitlessly for our place. We split up (actually, I took off confident that I’d find it and come back for Lisa) and Lisa ended up finding it and calling me . . .
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