Yesterday was mostly about the big scenic vistas as we rode along the coast to Otranto. Today is mostly about the little interesting stuff that catches our eye as we poke around the nooks and crannies in this very old, but still very much alive town.
And what a great day for it, Saturday so there are more people down in the old town, but just enough to make things interesting and give human colour and emotion to the place. You would have to suffer from severe agoraphobia to think it was crowded.
We started off with a tour of the Castle and this turned out to be so much more than a spin around a big pile of old stones. Whilst there was a history of the structure itself, the majority of the displays and information related to the history of Otranto and the surrounding area ... and this goes a long way back to neolithic era cave dwellings at Porto Badisco just a few km's south of here.
It was very interesting and informative, and having spent the morning learning a little about the area and its history I feel quite sheepish regarding my flippant comments about the skulls and bones in the Cathedral.
These are actually the remains of circa 800 'Otranto martyrs' who were killed in 1480 when the town was invaded and conquered by the Ottomans. Traditional accounts (Wikipedia) say that they were slaughtered after refusing to convert to Islam.
While the current displays and background on the Martyrs in the Castle don't refute that claim, they do put a slightly different spin on it. To paraphrase, they more or less said that it is likely that the Otrantins at that time, like most people in the area, were probably focused on keeping their families fed and would try to stay out of the internecine feuds between Islam and the Christian churches. It didn't work out so well for them.
In addition to learning about the Martyrs, there was also a very good temporary display about the Grotta dei Cervi ... neolithic caves at Porto Badisco 8 km south of Otranto. These were discovered in the 1970's and are some of the earliest records of human habitation in Europe. They are also right where we took the pictures of the sheep and goats yesterday! We would not have been able to go into the caves had we known about them as they are closed to the public. Only archeologists and other such academics can get access. I'm sure the odd goat makes it in them as well.
In addition to expanding our general knowledge base, we spent the rest of the day paying another short visit to the Cathedral and taking in the street sights of Otranto. An aperitif back at l'Ortale and then a great dinner at Ristorante Del Baffo (recommended to us by Sandro our B&B host). All in, a very relaxed and wonderful day. It was a Grand Day Out Gromit.
And what's with the weird title for the day? Kirsten always gets a facebook post up hours before i'm even close to getting this finished. Today she had a shot of me, vino in hand, in the garden at l'Ortale. She's also been on me to get my hair cut ... and mentioned this in her post. Looks like I have a few supporters amongst her friends, as the comments were generally in favour of my 'do'. So there.
Song of the Day, Hit the Road Jack by Ray Charles. This was playing in the garden at l'Ortale ... same place we were at yesterday for lunch. We stopped in for an aperitif at around 5, and had a lovely glass of wine, olives and a few more 'dog biscuits'. In addition to sensational food and wine, Andrea also offers up a fine soundtrack in the garden. When this came on it was bittersweet .. great song but it reminded us that tomorrow morning we have to heed those words and hit the road for our last day of biking on this trip!
starting the morning ... sans bici .... after over two months in Europe I'm demonstrating how multilingual I am ... three languages in one sentence ... not bad for an engineer
Same pic I took last night. Almost 12 hours later, light on the street but still no people. This is one of the prime 'trinket alleys' and I'd like to see a picture of this in August .. see the picture, not be here!
This is a bit of the story behind the Grotto dei Cervi, the neolithic caves we went by yesterday. Even if you can't see the caves, it's an interesting area
Some folks started to appear on the streets around 10 ... all locals going about their day .... these ladies had just finished having a chat with one of their friends who was hanging out their laundry
Conversation finished so now its back to work ... very interesting vantage point on the city from the fort ... now we sort of know how the nobility might have seen the world
There were a few other tourists ... these two were having a little break by the harbour. K and I came to the view that most of the tourists were still 'local' i.e Italian .. as to our ear that's the language most seemed to be speaking
We had lunch at a very lively Pizza place in the harbour area. Took this pic after we left of the family that was sitting behind us. Three generations and these two kids were pretty active and were being fed and entertained by all three generations of family and the staff ... everyone was happy!
just love the streets here ... just set off and wander ... it's not big enough to get completely lost and almost every turn shows you something wonderful
The Otranto Cathedral has one of the largest and best preserved mosaic floors that dates to the 12th century. Very similar to the one in Aquilla that we saw on our 2017 trip
The mosaic tells the main christian biblical stories in pictures, as literacy and books were not wide spread. Sad to think that the modern McDonalds cash registers are history repeating (or at least rhyming)
I think this may be a mausoleum, but I mainly put this in here because 1) it's a beautiful piece of sculpture and 2) it was quite dark in the cathedral and i set up my camera on a mini tripod and took this picture with a 1.6 second exposure. All of this took me about 5 minutes of phaffing around while K sat silently waiting. Who's the real martyr! She was silent verbally, but that makes up less than 10% of communication
After three attempts to take a selfie for our standard ‘sign off’ pic, I ended up with this. This one could make it into the selfie hall of fame ... and don’t say anything about my hair!
