I’ve always wanted to walk into a little Italian village and see the Nonnas (Italian Grandmothers) sitting on the side of the street making fresh pasta and gossiping about everyone and everything around them, but after travelling through Italy once before and only making it to the big tourist cities; I thought my dream would never come true.
That was until I stumbled across Bari. Before Luch and I left for Europe, my sister and I were sitting in a restaurant planning the route I was about to take and looking at a map of Europe in an old travel guide. We saw that Dubrovnik was right across the sea from Bari in Italy and I thought it would be fun to take a ferry across there instead of the usual train route which would be our norm up until that point.
The ferry across was an experience, with majority of people not wanting to pay extra for a proper seat or cabin, so people just sitting or sleeping on the deck and sometimes in the passages that led to the bathroom. We were two of those people. Luckily we managed to check in early enough and find ourselves a lovely bench outside where we could chuck all of our bags and chill out. It was the first time in days that we’d actually had time to put our feet up, so I definitely wasn’t complaining.
When we got to Bari and dragged our suitcases for a few blocks, we started to notice that what we thought was a big city, really was not. We were heading more and more into the old heart of the town and the lovely cobble stone streets that it provided. We noticed Nonnas on every corner in their white plastic chairs making the fresh pasta which we later found out was for the restaurants in the main square. They also watched us like hawks. We were the newcomers and we didn’t belong.
We walked up to where we thought our accommodation was and then took out my phone to contact our Airbnb host. In all of 2 minutes though, one of the Nonnas came up and decided to help us. She couldn’t speak English and we couldn’t speak Italian, so it was an interesting conversation made up of a lot of sign language and showing her the number of our accommodation on my phone. She then decided to phone the mother of our Airbnb host, because apparently everyone knows everyone. She was getting all passionate over the phone and Luch and I stood trying to explain that we had already contacted the host and he was coming. She wasn’t having it though. She was going to help us if it was the last thing she did. Luckily our host was only a few minutes away and showed up to save us the embarrassment of being stuck on the street any longer.
The square around the corner from our accommodation was filled with two restaurants and white plastic tables and chairs outside and it was the place to be on a Friday night. We hadn’t had time to shop, so decided to get takeaway pizza from the one place; but sit in the square and watch the people while we waited for it. It was just incredible. Watching kids playing in the square as the lights that were above the square were switched on to the applause of everyone sitting at the restaurants underneath them. We could see people sitting on their balconies having a glass of wine or a smoke and just enjoying their moment in time. It was life, plain and simple and for a small second it took my breath away.
The next day was not as magical unfortunately. We got up and decided to sight see in the area. Having thought there wasn’t much to see, I was completely mistaken. We found ourselves outside a beautiful castle that looked like it belonged in Morocco or on Game of Thrones at the very least, visited the Basilica of San Nicola with its incredible crypt where people were on their knees in silent prayers. Even though we spent the day keeping ourselves busy with the sights, we were just so grateful that it wasn’t super busy with tourists. A first on our journey so far.
The following day, we got up early and decided to take a train out to Alberobello. I hadn’t known it existed until we stayed in our Airbnb and saw the flyer. It looked amazing on the flyer. All these limestone, conical shaped huts (called Trulli) spread out over an entire town. It looked like a village that fairytales would have been written about. First though, we were starving and needed sustenance. We looked online and found great reviews at this little sandwich shop called Mastro Ciccio. All I’m going to say is Wow wow wow! Luch picked a fresh octopus sandwich and because it was too early in the morning for me, I picked a parma ham and mozzarella one. They were huge and the best part was that they put them in the sandwich press to warm them up beforehand. That was our breakfast and lunch, so we finished every last bite and enjoyed every second of it.
There was a bit of confusion about the train though. It turned out that even though it said it went there, it really didn’t. A bus route had replaced the train and we had to run down some busy streets to find it. Ending up at the wrong bus stop multiple times, eventually we found what we thought was the right bus and got on it. All the lady said to us when we showed our tickets was, “Yes, this will get there”.
We were worried it wouldn’t, but it eventually did. After what felt like 50 stops along the way. It was worth it though. To see the many streets lined up ahead of us filled with over a thousand of these amazing huts was just awesome. Majority of them were filled with souvenir shops, restaurants and gelato; but some of them were museums, accommodation or more interestingly still lived in by regular people.
We went into a few just to see what the inside was like and couldn’t believe that people still lived in them. The souvenir shops were my favourite, but we had already made a deal not to buy anything because there wasn’t an inch of space to bring anything home with us. Good thing too, because I probably would have bought way to many things. There were these amazing symbols painted on most of the Trulli. Apparently they ranged from magical symbols, to Christian and even primitive. All to ward off evil. We even found a jewellery store selling the symbols in jewels which I definitely would have taken home had they been cheaper.
We saw these massive storm clouds roll in headed for the Gelato shop. At the very least, we thought we could shelter inside while it rained. So we bought some gelato and saw that under the umbrellas outside it was quiet and we would still be protected from the rain, so we went to sit down. Within 2 minutes, the rain had started to pour down like a flash flood and people ran from all over the town to under the same umbrella as us. Since we were already sitting, we just stayed where we were, but soon people were pressed in so close around us that I could barely breath and I definitely couldn’t move my chair to get up. There was a kid behind us shouting to his dad about something, but really my ear was getting the most of the story. We even saw the water flowing down the stairs like a river.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching what we assumed was a bridal shower trying to climb into an Uber SUV with the rain pouring on all sides of them and trying not to get water in their high heels. We didn’t have that option unfortunately. We had arrived by bus and would have to return to Bari on a bus once more. Eventually the rain eased and we could finally move our chairs and return to the wide open spaces. We had an interesting time trying to find the hotel where our bus would pick us up and then also trying to buy bus tickets from the petrol station across the road.
On the trip back to Bari, I thought we might die because the bus driver never slowed down. He didn’t seem to mind that it was once again pouring with rain and he had to drive through huge puddles. Instead he drove like he was in some kind of rally. I almost kissed the ground I was so grateful when we finally got back to our accommodation in Bari.
We woke up the next morning, sad to move on, but also excited to see what other beautiful places Italy had to offer.
