All the way to the bottom of the "heel"!

Absolutely stunning scenery following the coast

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Ciao!
Still cannot believe it is December!! Where has 2008 gone?? Woke up about 6 this morning to a lovely, clear day – beautiful blue skies again. Breakfast is served in our flat. We have a small fridge, a hot plate, kettle, etc. as well as a table fully set. Our warm pastries arrived just on the dot at 8, and we enjoyed them very much! They do have some very odd juices here, though – difficult to find plain old orange – rather we have peach, and pineapple and apricot … hmmm…

Headed out about 8:30 a.m. – unfortunately having to ask Anna, our wonderful landlady, to organize the car procession. The inner courtyard holds 6 cars; two rows of three. And naturally, ours was the first one in one of the rows! R did the honors of backing out – and let me tell you, heading backend first into raging street traffic can take some doing! Negotiated our way out of the city, and headed southeast – our objective is Otranto and finally, the southern most tip of the Italian “heel” – Santa Maria di Leuca. (R likes to collect “ends” – Chilean, South African, Hawaiian, etc.)

WOW! What an incredible drive! And, being off-season, we had the road basically to ourselves! We hit the coast road at Otranto, and from there to S. Marie di Leuca, the scenery was incredible. Just a few towns, but beautiful roads overlooking cliffs and lots of crashing waves. Reminded us both of Highway 1 at Big Sur, or the “road to Hana” in Hawaii (except a lot fewer people). We were able to take our time and poke along and stop when we wanted for pictures. Just truly beautiful! This was an area populated by native peoples even before the Romans, and some of the vestiges of their settlements remain – mostly series of dry-stone (no mortar) walls and fences – they were everywhere; truly beautiful, and R read in one of the guidebooks that these walls are used even today to mark property boundaries. There were also several larger towns, like Santa Cesarea de Terme; obviously very touristy in the summers; huge, white hotels; lots of restarants. All very quiet now, but a lovely day – about 70 degrees with a nice breeze blowing. We really enjoyed it!

Drove past the southern-most point and started heading back north up the west side of the boot, but scenery not nearly as wonderful! Much flatter, much less dramatic, so we decided to head back to the other side and take the road back north, to see what we’d gone past earlier in the day. Stopped at a store for some cokes and cookies; we’ll forgo lunch for dinner tonight (if we’re hungry ever again…) Just a wonderful drive! Headed back into Lecce around 2, and found our way back to the flat with no problem! No, though, we’re #2 in one line…not sure what the protocol is if we want to go for a walk, but expect it will all work itself out!

Also, wanted to make a comment about tennis shoes…I had noticed a couple of years ago that almost all of the men and kids in France were into tennies of one sort or another – meaning that in just a few years, the girls would turn into ladies, and voila, another population converted! Here, many of the women are now wearing tennis shoes, but many of them are multi-colored or black (the Italian national color) and almost all of the ladies shoes use velcro to close and NOT shoe strings! Very interesting! While there are many brands of shoes available, it seems that most people are into Nike for some reason. Wonder how many of them are “custom ordered” Nike shoes that you can get in the States??

More later!
m