To Manduria

April 7, 2023

We’ve biked south from Taranto twice before, both times following the coast to Porto Cesareo. Looking for a different experience this time we’re biking inland instead to Manduria, a small town that’s not really on the tourist circuit. There are several towns like this that we’ve picked out this time - Galatina, Mesagne, Noci, Minervino Murge - that look interesting, have accommodations and restaurants, and look like they’ll show us a little different and less tourist-oriented side of Puglia than we’ve seen before in the big name places like Alberobello and Ostuni.

It’s a short, easy ride to Manduria. We have to leave our room in Taranto by 10 and can’t check in to the new one until 3:30, so the plan is that we’ll arrive in Manduria in the early afternoon, find someplace there to have lunch as our main meal of the day, and then head to the room.

There are a chaotic few miles getting out of Taranto, the largest city in Puglia, but after that we’re in the country biking past olive orchards most of the rest of the way, periodically breaking up the countryside by passing through a series of smaller villages. It doesn’t take long for us to realize how similar biking in Sicily and Puglia are. Olive groves, wildflowers, stone walls, sheep drives, cities with traffic problems, roadsides with unsightly trash problems. Really, the two are very similar.

Oh, wait. There is one difference. Puglia’s flat, Sicily is mountainous. There is that. It’s OK though - they’re both nice. Variety is good.

Poppies and olive trees. Definitely Sicily-like.

Rachael thinks that protrusion at the top could be a dovecote. What do you think?

Is that a Costello, Abbott? No, it’s a castillo.

This is how I remember our first tour of Puglia - like biking through a blaze of wildflowers.

Video sound track: La complicità, by Fabrizio Moro

Entering Manduria, through the Arch of St. Angel. You wouldn’t know from this well-timed photo, but it’s a traffic bottleneck - a one lane arch on a two lane road, the principal one through town.

It’s a bit after one when we reach Manduria. We pull up at the first bench in the sun we come to and I watch the bikes while Rachael wanders off searching for a suitable open eatery. She comes back in fifteen minutes excited about the place she’s found, La Sartoria. It’s one of the few places open that she can find, but it’s perfect. A casual place that has a simple but appealing menu, and looks fine to hang out in for awhile and to leave our bikes. And it has an impressive set of beers on tap, always a plus. Rachael has pulled pork, I have roast chicken, and at 3:30 we he’d off to claim our room.

Yes Graham, you can find an IPA in Italy. This one comes from California though.

We hang out in the room for about two hours doing the three R’s: reading, relaxing, and rinsing. Then we wander off to see what Manduria has to offer. At first glance it’s not too compelling - there’s the entrance arch, a nicely domed church and an appealing public space with codgers sitting around the edges on benches and youngsters executing skateboard stunts. That seems like about it though - at first glance.

The Church of Santa Maria of Constantinople.

Piazza Garibaldi, with the Imperiale-Filotico Palace facing it.

But we keep looking - well, Rachael keeps looking and then comes back to the piazza to collect me and continue on around the corner, because it looks quite interesting. And it is. First, there are additional churches to poke our noses in and briefly explore.

Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, with the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi beyond.

Then, in another block or two we find ourselves in the ‘real’ old town, an intriguing small neighborhood of white marble streets and alleys and one visual delight after another. We wander around exploring streets at random until it starts getting chilly and time to head back to the room, after first poking our noses into a small bakery and coming away with a small sack of biscotti to enhance our snack dinner back in the room.

Very nice. It makes me glad to have picked this place, which I was unsure of at first. On a smaller scale it has some of the same qualities you find in the better known Puglian towns, but without the crowds.

The Torre della Porticella, standing at the site of one of the former gateways to the ancient city.

You see more bikes here than at places like Ragusa, Sciacca or Caltagirone. I’m not sure why.

The campanile of the Church of th3 Holy Trinity.

The cloister of Chiesa dello Spirito Sancto.

Heart

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Ride stats today: 26 miles, 700’; for the tour: 375 miles, 26,400’

Today's ride: 26 miles (42 km)
Total: 375 miles (604 km)

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Bob DistelbergI really like that video segment showing you cycling through the shadow of the spinning wind turbine blades. Very cool. I only ever manage to see wind turbines far away on a hill somewhere, not up close and personal like that.
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1 year ago

Scott AndersonTo Bob DistelbergYou noticed! We loved that too, and in fact saw it coming and intentionally included it.
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1 year ago

Graham FinchGetting off the main tourist trail is always a good idea. Italy is one, big outdoor museum.
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1 year ago