We started of in Brindisi, where our hotel host picked up us at the airport and drove us to the hotel. After dumping our stuff and deciding on who slept where we headed out into town. We got recommended to go to down to the water so we went to a pizzeria. - First day in Italy - When we got asked if we were ready to order there was quite a bit of confusion, one of us said yes, another no, the first one knew the rest had said yes to pizza and it was a pizzeria. The other one knew that we wanted to sit outside, and that wasn't an option here. This was the first of many confusing moments, most were because many italians were bad at english, something they weighed up for in many other ways, but not when it came to being understandable.
We spent three nights in Brindisi, a city with streets that were extremely confusing. One of the best things was the food festival that happened to take place right then. I tried some special kind of italian meat skewers with spice inside and I have to say that it might be the best thing I've ever eaten.
The next city we visited was Lecce, a short stop on our way to Gallipoli. This was the only city that wasn't close to the coast, and therefore also the hottest, meaning +35. It was pretty tough to walk in, especially as we had to bring our stuff along. We did see quite a lot of churches there and got a good dose of culture, enough for me at least.
Then we went to Gallipoli, we lived close to the old town island, which had beautiful small streets that inevitably made you get a little lost, just like in Brindisi. I guess that's the way it is with old cities, quite charming really.
Next stop was Taranto, where we met a very nice hotel host called Angelo. He drove us from the bus stop to the hotel for free, that would have been an hour of walking in 30+ with our bags if he hadn't helped us. Except for him I can't say that I found Taranto to be anything special, even if we of course enjoyed our stay.
The last place was the best really. We planned on heading to Monopoli and booked a hotel the last night in Taranto. However the one of us who booked it isn't the most reliable when it comes to getting things done right. He's more of an artist than someone who has control. We took the bus to Gallipoli and walked to the hotel - Where we were told that they had no free rooms -. Apparently they had sent a mail to my friend at 09.00 the same day saying that they didn't have any place. You could say that they were a bit late with it, but as we booked the hotel around 23.30 the day before I think they were fast enough with telling us.
My confused friend who we were all a bit annoyed at then called the site we had booked the hotel through, booking.com. Fifteen minutes later we had a hotel in a nearby smaller town, that cost 240 euro instead of 150, but we would still only have to pay for the first cheaper hotel. Our hosts at the hotel we thought we would stay at in Monopoli didn't mind driving us there at all either. - All those helpful italians ... -.
That's how we ended up in Polignano a mare, the last and, according to all of us, best place. There I actually met some new people when we were enjoying the city at night, and if there's one thing I love with nightlife it's to meet new people. I actually met one of them the next day too, when we went swimming. There was no beach, only a small stony place to go into the water, the rest of the surroundings consisted of large cliffs. The water was many meters deep below all cliffs so it was perfect for some jumping.
I've never been a huge fan of that kind of activity, I've jumped from 10m once but usual prefer 3m or not to jump at all. Now I jumped from a 5m high rock several times and loved it. I also dived from 2m for the first time, which went just fine. I'm alright at diving but havn't tried it from a high cliff before. Then I tried 3m, and I might have lost a few children in the future there as my landing was a bit ... unlucky, but Polignano a mare was still the best place we were at for sure.
After three nights there we went back to Brindisi for two nights, then headed home after two great weeks in Italy with great weather, we saw clouds four days and the sun was hidden behind clouds once for 15 minutes, but except for that there was only blue sky.
I hope that gives you an idea about what I did in Italy and so. While writing this I'm in western Sweden on vacation with some other funny peeps, but I'll leave that for next week.