Yes, I’m back home.
No, I’m not happy when I look through the window now: hazy shades of grayness brought to life with some sparkling drops of rain. One clarification though: I am happy, overall. The warmth just comes from my family. It felt good to see them again and catch up.
Besides the climate, I love Italy for the food. Probably pizza and pasta come to mind first, but what I like most are the pure and tasteful ingredients. Tomatoes taste so much better when they have been shimmering in sunshine. Here they taste like water.
At Casa Vita we usually eat lunch at home: tomatoes, fresh mozzarella or the typical burrata (so creamy, delicious), prosciutto crudo, grilled zucchini and eggplant, olive oil extra vergine…
photos by Marie Bouly Photography
After a siësta on the swing bed, a jump in the pool, some reading on the lounge chairs – if I really feel the need to do some extra intellectual effort ;-), we start thinking of some cocktails. Best spot is on the white patio where you can see the evening sun squeezing between the olive trees.
Going out to dine is a treat in Puglia! So many good restaurants. I am just going to name a few. It is up to you to try as many as possible, and let me know if you discover some good ones. To be honest, we have never had a bad meal.
My favorite in Ostuni is Taverna della gelosia. The location is gorgeous, three levels outdoors, you are surrounded by trees and overgrowing plants. Their tableware is such a great combination of colors. Last but not least, they have a sublime choice of antipasti! In fact, if you order pasta for each of you, you have eaten plenty.
Still a bit higher up into the narrow streets is Bella Vista, great view if you sit outdoors. And inside it has a glass floor where you can see through onto the rock floor. They have great white pizzas (without tomato sauce).
If you turn in one of the narrow streets off the main road from Ostuni to Ceglie (SP 22), close to Casa Vita, you discover Antimo. This is a biological farm as well as a restaurant. Delicious food and marvelous surroundings. They also offer cooking classes.
Good restaurants I can recommend in Martina Franca are Garibaldi Bistrot and Nausikaa, both in the centro storico (old town).
The owners – a family- of Garibaldi bistrot are such nice people and they have excellent local wines.
A little outside of Alberobello you can find Fidelio. It has a beautiful big garden, fantastic to sit in the summer, and it has a cosy interior too. In Locorotondo you need to dine in U Curdunn, also a beautiful interior, and in the warm months, they just set the tables in the narrow streets. In U Curdunn you find mostly meat on the menu.
In Cisternino you can devour all the best the Puglian land has to offer in Terra Madre (vegetarian).
Of course, if you insist on a unique setting, you can always try to get into the caves of Polignano a Mare. The expensive restaurant I told you about in my story on Polignano, remember?
Oh dear, now I am getting hungry again, looking at and thinking about food.
Buon appetito!
Sophia
It’s seems a little odd to use the word “friends” for people I only see once every few years or so. We live on another continent, speak a different language and there are many cultural differences. The last time I saw Jenny and Debbie was almost three years ago, and then merely for one evening. But nonetheless we are good friends. We have had some wonderful vacations together over the years, and I believe this is the best time to catch up, when you have time for endless conversations. We have time to discover that there are so many items that unite us: remembering those days when we met at Washington school, waiting for our sons, who were friends back then, full of endless energy and mischief. Being proud of the grown-up men they have become – something we were a little afraid of at some point, I honestly admit 😉 Discussing relationships, the ones that lasted and the ones that didn’t make it, and putting all possible reasons under the psychological microscope. Analyzing our own characters, why some try to avoid confrontation and others are straightforward. We agreed upon the fact that the main reason lies in our different childhoods. Well, we aren’t the first to come up with this theory, right? None of us has a psychology degree, but we can all be therapists. Do you remember the quote: Friends are the best therapists? Wine is too… and we tasted plenty of excellent local wines during our week. In fact it’s possible we tried almost all of the wines in Puglia…
The new 
We bought the house and paid an extra price to keep the furniture (we changed a lot afterwards, but okay, that’s normal), but there was a slight miscommunication on whether the expensive internet-TV was part of the deal. We assumed it was but noticed it wasn’t. A huge empty space on the wall was mocking with us when we entered the house after the notary deed. An extra investment, we thought, and problem solved. We went to a nearby store, bought a huge screen internet TV. A few days later, they sent us Giovanni in his fancy BMW and the TV. We clearly explained that it was important to have many channels available, and certainly British (since most guests are from the UK). He stayed busy on the sofa in front of the TV for at least two hours and when leaving, explained – too quickly – how everything worked. We were in the middle of installing the stuff we brought from Belgium (we managed to have a truck full), so it wasn’t until later that we noticed that most of the channels appeared to be Italian. Well, Giovanni blamed it on the internet, not strong enough because of the thick walls, but he would find a solution. A couple of days later he came back with a huge satellite antenna. The old antenna could be removed and replaced by this one. It wasn’t too visible, placed behind the roof of the trullo, so I agreed. Giovanni proudly announced we could watch over 500 channels now, worldwide! He disappeared, leaving a bill of 300 Euros for the antenna. That evening I took the time to go over the different channels. I didn’t count them, but there must have been a few hundred–broadcasted from the following areas: Japan, China, the Middle-East. I was furious, and believe me, expressing your anger in a different language is not that easy. So I took the dictionary, wrote everything down and called Giovanni. “Ah, Sophia! Come sta?” In my best English I politely told him to get his antenna and put it where ever …. He got the message, came back, gave me a friendly kiss (I thought it was a habit in Italy, but Francesca told me it was not a custom at all), removed the antenna and finally found a satisfactory solution.
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