Florence's ode to big beautiful blue sky last night, and the inherent optimism that brings, paid off for us today. Another song of the same album, Ship to Wreck, would have fit right in today too. More on that later.
The weather forecasts continued to be remarkably accurate which means we set off this morning under clear sky with a single digit breeze blowing from the east. In other words, a perfect day for cycling. Our route / plan for the day was to ride the coast a short 50 km to Santa Marie di Leuca, the very southern tip of the Salento peninsula and it all went like clockwork. We actually got an early start as the wind was forecast to pick up and start coming from the south in the early afternoon. We were checking into our hotel at 12;30 and that was with lots of stops along the way for pictures and tramping around on the rocky headlands.
Almost forgot ... also a 20 minute stop to fix a flat on Kirsten's front tire ... there was a ton of road debris and a good size shard of glass made it's way through her tire. No prob though, we pulled off into the entrance to a resort just south of Gallipoli, and they had a pretty good jazz track playing while we took our time and fixed the tire. Nice.
A good portion of our picture stops today were to take in the damage from the storm over the last two days. Every town and village was affected, and there was more damage the further south we went. Kirsten heard from a few people that Venice was also badly hit with flooding (it's like what - 5 cm above sea level!) so this was no localized storm. I'll let the pic's show and tell most of that story.
Over the past few weeks and posts, people have probably noticed that I've been making a lot of smug remarks about being here in November and basically having the place to ourselves. Today however that came full circle and is turning into a liability.
For the entire day we were largely on our own on the road. It is quite pretty however no place shows it's best face in November and combined with the storm debris, and almost complete lack of people, most of the towns were looking a little rough.
When we pulled into Leuca, many seaside restaurants that used to have nice decks were now shuttered with twisted wreckage where the deck used to be. Even without the storm, they would have been shuttered as we are clearly out of the tourist season in a tourism driven area. Most hotels and restaurants are closed, and with good reason. We are about the only tourists in town!
We pushed the timing envelope a bit too far, I think end October would be the latest you would want to be down here. After that, this region starts to look like a ghost town.
We did manage to get a good lunch and a decent dinner ... but it was a hunt and peck job to find them. Online resources are largely useless other than indicating where a place is (sort of). To see if it actually exists and is open for business you have to physically search it out. Just like the good old days! How quickly we forget.
This isn't a complaint ... just an observation.
As you'll see from the pics though, it is a very beautiful coast line and it was a really easy and short day of biking giving us time to check out the lighthouse and surrounding area in the limited daylight we have.
We set off north to Otranto tomorrow, and then its Lecce for the conclusion of the trip. If the Norwegians are right with the weather, we should get blown north tomorrow with 30 km/hr + tailwinds!
Song of the Day, Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens by Louis Jordan
'Ain't nobody here but us chickens,
Ain't nobody here at all'
So true today, and we felt like chickens pecking around the coop looking for a place to eat :)
The sea side road in 'new Gallipoli' . this is where the biggest waves were crashing in the pics i posted yesterday ... big enough to rip up these huge sections of cement sidewalk and toss them on the road
As we rounded he point and started heading east into the town we caught our first glimpse of the lighthouse, the second largest in Italy. Open water to the south until you hit Libya! The round 'look-out' in the middle of the picture was our next photo stop. It was right in an unprotected line with the south wind and waves
And this is what it looked like when we got there. The wall has probably been then for a few hundred years .. and it many have been damaged before ... but it didn't do to well over the last 48 hrs
We nailed the timing for our stroll up to the lighthouse. Blue sky and the sun had about an hour left ... making for some beautiful softer light and deeper blues
Glenna JefferiesAwsome stairs, Now if only we had ones like that at McHugh Bluff! although the winter would wear them down just as badly and not so easy to fix as changing out a plank of wood! Reply to this comment 4 years ago
Nice combo ... you will note in this pic, and the rest that follow, that there are NO other people. I didn't have to work on getting camera angles to exclude them. I suspect this place would be heaving in August
Another statue of Pope Benedetto ... can't go a day without a picture, statue, road or building named after this guy .... to no one's surprise I'm completely ignorant about Pope's so I don't know what his significance was/is ... but there's something there!
... had one other couple walk through the square after about 20 minutes ... love the hiking boots ... they do have vibram sole ... other than that, not sure how far I'd recommend walking in them!
but had to stop for a kitty shot about half way down. This guy followed us up the other side, and then met us again when we were halfway down on this side of the stairs
another casualty of the storm. Although someone is probably quite sad their boat is wrecked, as far as we know no people were killed or injured during the storm. Boats can be replaced. This was just one of several sailboats in Leuca harbour that were either underwater or pushed up onto the dock
Our hotel is right at the harbour and we have a balcony off the third floor. Great for sunset shots as we sat there and took in the site. Bear with me as I play around with various camera settings ... quite like this one
