Otranto

Once we were settled into the masseria, we went to visit the nearby towns.  The closest town to the masseria was Otranto.  When we checked the maps, it was listed as being only 9 minutes away from the masseria.  Even this short time was a bit conservative and the reality was that the drive was more like 5 minutes once I knew where I was headed.

The town has a reputation for its beauty.  Given everything we had already seen in Puglia, that reputation would have been hard earned, so we were looking forward to seeing how special this place was ourselves.  We parked the car, put baby Pickle into his stroller and started to walk towards the town.  It was a short walk, through tree lined streets.  This area felt affluent and very well maintained.  Rather than walk straight into the old town immediately, we decided instead to take a slight detour and walked along the waterfront of the beach next to the old town.  From there we walked past modern apartment developments with the accompanying shops and restaurants downstairs.  It felt very different to the traditional old towns we had visited and more like a modern seaside resort town.  From across the little bay, we had a beautiful and unimpeded view of the old town. 

Walking into the old town itself, it again felt a bit different from other towns we had visited.  Once again, it was a more polished experience.  This was still clearly a historic old town like all the others we had visited, and yet the feeling of manufactured newness seemed to permeate through this location just a bit more than the other places.  Maybe it was the styling, or maybe it was how busy it was with tourists.  It just seemed particularly artificial.

We kept visiting the town.  The strange initial artificial feeling didn't stop us from exploring and as we came back repeatedly, we found more and more in the the town that we liked.

It must have been a part of the summer festivities, but there was a constant parade of music and dancing through the streets.  Whether just locals enjoying themselves or a more organised performance, I wasn't so sure, but it didn't matter.  On several occasions, as Veronica ate dinner, I tried to give her some respite from the screaming baby Pickle by taking him off on an adventure around the town.  It was an easy thing to do as we followed the bands and dancers around.  Pickle would lock his eyes on the bright colours and the wonderful music.  I set him out at the front of the crowds and he rocked and danced to the beat of the music and the utter delight of the gathered audience.

We also found restaurants that gave us everything we wanted in both food and kindness.  The higher class of the town also meant a higher class of dining.  The restaurants still felt casual and homely, but they definitely had a more upmarket clientele in mind.  The options on offer were a bit more expensive, but also a bit more luxuriant.  Seafood was as always the focus, but prepared, cooked and served with more care and detail.  The service still retained that loving kindness we had come to enjoy in this part of Italy.  The servers and staff laughed and joked with all the customers, they made faces at the children and seemed to genuinely enjoy the evenings with us all.

After exploring the town several times, we had the same feelings.  It was "old", but it was all refurbished, rebuilt, revitalised.  It didn't necessarily feel as authentic as some of the other places we had visited, but it was nonetheless a very attractive town.  I normally wouldn't like a place like this as much as others, but there was an incredible vibe and energy to this town.  In the evenings it was active and completely full of life, with both visitors and locals.  It was a place we seemed to enjoy visiting every time.  Our meals were happy.  Our wandering around was fun.  What more could you ask for?