Burning the Inheritance

For our last week in Italy we were hoping to find a quiet place where we could relax (ideally on a beach) and get mentally and physically prepared for what promised to be a pretty grueling three week run through Israel and Jordan.  We decided to visit the region of Puglia (pronounced poo-lee-ah with the accent on the poo, sometimes referred to as Apulia,) which forms the heel of the boot of Italy.  We came to Puglia because it is a little off the radar (of foreign tourists at least) which we hoped would translate to less crowded.  We honestly just stumbled upon Giovinazzo while looking at Airbnbs along the coast around Bari, the transportation hub and capital of the region.  We couldn’t find much about Giovinazzo online (not necessarily a bad thing) but what we did find looked good, and the Airbnb looked amazing, so we went with it.

We left Ravello on Saturday July 21^st.  We had arranged for an early taxi pick-up and took the bus from Amalfi back to Salerno, where we caught a train which went directly to Bari.  The scenery during the train ride was pretty spectacular as we made our way across southern Italy, from rocky western coast to the coastal plains along the east coast.  Along the way we passed west of Pompei and Mount Vesuvius, made a stop in Naples, and then passed Mount Vesuvius again from the north – amazing how it dominates the land around it (probably because you know what it is and what it did).  Beyond Vesuvius, you pass through the mountains and gradually descend to the central plains, with farms stretching off in all directions (the breadbasket of Italy?), which reach pretty much all the way to the eastern coast. 

From Bari we caught a tram to Giovinazzo.  The trip only took about 15 minutes, but we had to wait an hour for the next one, so we took advantage of the time and Colleen did some grocery shopping at a Despar (our favorite Italian grocery chain) which was conveniently located in the Bari Central Train Station.

Long story short, Giovinazzo turned out to be everything we hoped for and then some, starting with the place we were staying, Piazza Porto 20, a first-floor apartment in an 18^th century building with much of the original stone floor, walls, and vaulted ceilings exposed.  There were displays of various artifacts related to local history and the construction of the building scattered about with placards describing (Italian and English in beautiful architectural hand lettering) what each artifact was with explanations of its purpose and use.  It was almost like sleeping at the museum! 

The Town of Giovinazzo turned out to be a very pleasant surprise, a small (pop. 19,000) very traditional Italian seaside town which, during the summer months, caters to Italians on holiday (sort of the Italian equivalent of a traditional Jersey Shore town maybe 50 years ago).  During the day, activity tends to be centered around the town’s small harbor which is surrounded on three sides by a number of beautiful old buildings including the 18^th century Cathedrale de Santa Maria Assunta, a nice enough Romanesque church, but beautiful in this setting.  A nice walkway extends west along the coast from the harbor with small cafes, bars, and restaurants across the road and rocks below which become surprisingly crowded with swimmers and sunbathers during the day.

At night, while the harbor and seaside remain active, things pick up one block south in the town’s square, the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, a large trapezoidal square with a beautiful fountain of Triton in the center of its wide end.  The town square is overseen by the Church of San Domenico on one side and municipal buildings on the other, with shops, restaurants, gelateria, and upper story apartments scattered in between. In the evening it seemed like most of the town was out sitting or strolling the square or eating and drinking on its perimeter.

Between the harbor and the Piazza Vittorio is the Piazza Porto, part of which slopes to the harbor but part of which is a bit of an alcove to the side with shade trees and benches and surrounded by three-story apartment buildings on 3 sides (including the one we were staying in).  Predictably, during both the day and evening, this smaller piazza serves as a quieter side space to the busier and more active harbor and Piazza Vittorio and all the foot traffic between them.  Similarly, it served as a nice buffer between our place and all that activity and accompanying noise.

We quickly fell into a pretty hedonistic daily routine which included lazing about at home in the morning, heading out between 10 and 11 to laze about at the beach* with some lunch worked in there somewhere, then home for dinner (Colleen truly enjoys cooking, so still hedonistic), followed by an evening stroll in the harbor or town square for gelato.  (Repeat, repeat, repeat, and repeat.)  Really just what we were looking for and definitely just what the doctor ordered.

* While we understand that for most Americans the use of the term “beach” implies sand of some sort, we ourselves have gotten beyond that and have gotten comfortable with beaches of kelp, gravel, stone, and even concrete.  In general, our approach to beaching is to do whatever it takes to get away from the crowds and lay our light-weight travel towels down almost anywhere provided the view is good enough and it is an uncrowded spot (optimally with some shade near at hand). 

However, beginning in Morocco and continuing through Italy, our normal approach to beaching has been challenged considerably and we have started to find ourselves doing something we never imagined we would – paying to rent beach chairs and an umbrella (sometimes at “private” beach clubs!).  In our defense, it has been difficult to find uncrowded public beaches in Italy, including in Giovinazzo, where the beaches are rocks which get pretty crowded and where there is little, if any, shade available. (Also still getting over the sting of paying $30 for an umbrella and two chairs in Giovinazzo when they cost $3 in Taghazout, Morocco!)

In any case, we spent most of our “beach” time in Giovinazzo at the Zama beach club where the chairs were comfortable, the umbrellas came with plenty of space, and there was bar service as well.  The other thing Zama offered, which is should not be underappreciated, was reasonably safe and easy access in and out of the ocean via ramps and steps versus walking across some pretty slimy and slippery rocks. Zama was located a few blocks up the coast and the walk to and from it, through the harbor and along the shoreline was a nice (but not overly taxing) way to start and end the beach day, and there were several nice cafes and restaurants along this route to grab a bite or beverage.  Nothing terribly memorable, but some decent pasta and pizza, wine, and Aperol spritzes (which I’ve become oddly addicted to in Italy).

The only real departure from our routine and probably the only close to ambitious thing we did while in Giovinazzo was to walk 2 kilometers up the coast one morning in search of a better beach and a better grocery store (both of which we found).  We spent that day at the Nautilus Beach Club which turned out to be a nice place with a decent size resident clientele but lots of room so that it never seemed crowded.  It had an interesting kids pool which was a roundish inlet near the “beach” with a channel bringing in (and taking out) seawater such that the level of the pool rose and fell with the tide.  We had lunch at their restaurant, which was actually quite good, but in the end weren’t thrilled enough with the place to justify the longer walk and went back to Club Zama the next day.

The only other particularly noteworthy thing that happened in Giovinazzo while we were there were the fireworks.  On Sunday July 2^nd, we were already in for the evening when we heard fireworks in the harbor.  We were pretty certain that there had been no fireworks on Saturday night but, just to be safe, we made a point of being out later the following night (Monday) and, while we were sitting in the harbor plaza enjoying our gelato, a couple of warning shots were fired followed by a really nice fireworks display over the coast.  There were no more fireworks for the rest of the week and we never quite figured out why there were any on Monday night but were happy nonetheless to have seen them.

Giovinazzo turned out to be a great (maybe even perfect) place to finish our second lap of Italy.  It was a beautiful, warm, quiet and occasionally, (but appropriately) raucous place.  While there were tourists, they were almost exclusively Italians on holiday and it never felt crowded (except when it was supposed to).  The place felt very natural and unspoiled and left with a final taste of Italy which will linger.

For once at least, the week did not seem to fly by but instead was as drawn out and leisurely as we had hoped it would be.  But, all things do, sooner or later, come to an end and so, on Thursday July 6^th, we packed and organized ourselves and then headed out to the Piazza for our last gelato and stroll in beautiful Giovinazzo, happy to have found it.  Unfortunately, we are quicky approaching the end of our 90-day Schengen Area limit and so are not just leaving Italy, but also Europe, as we head toward Asia and Africa.

Next stop, Tel-Aviv, Israel