Grattiglie via Locorotondo

October 11, 2024

First thing this morning we need to traverse the absolute maze of trulli to find the bike room. I am certain it is up this street...

The bike storage trullo had a full size pump and a few other bikes, all e-bikes of course.

We had decided to go to Locorotondo first, then head south to Grattiglie. This wasn't the original route, so we couldn't use their preprogrammed "Ride my GPS" app, and resorted to our trusty Komoot. It took us on some wonderful backroads and in no time we were into one of "the most beautiful towns in Italy". This was our expectation:

Instead we navigated past heavy traffic, all heading to this hilltop. We went there too, and finally entered a pedestrian zone at the very top and yes, it was gorgeous. But first, a cafe stop!

Then we left the bikes tied up and rambled through the streets a bit. Very pretty town for sure. They call it the "White City" and even the street surfaces seem to be made of white marble.

The tourists are here, but the shop owners are still thinking about it.

A bit of colour contrast with the white.

We didn't want to leave the bikes too long unattended (even though locked) so retrieved them and followed the signs to the "Belvedere", always a sign of a good lookout when in Europe. Indeed you could see other towns from here, all on their own hills.

that could be Martina Franca behind Pat....

So then we type "Grattiglie" into Komoot and let it take us out of here. Amazingly, in only a couple of km it found a bike trail - named Cyclivo del Aquaducto Pugliese - which we assumed meant it was built on an old Roman aqueduct.

As you can see it is not paved, but rather a fine white gravel and went on and on for about 30 km, mostly downhill! Komoot seldom misses.

One very strange aspect of Puglia roads I should mention is the trash lining virtually every meter of roadway. For such a wonderfully pretty place, it is a bit tragic to see this. We mentioned this to a Dutch couple we spoke with, and they had noticed the same aspect.

A mild example, but trash beside the trulli.

This part of Puglia is called the "Land of 100 Massererie", which are fortified farmhouses, often surrounded by fields of olive trees.

Beautiful farmhouses with fields lined with, you guessed it, stone fences.

Here is what the "aqueducts" looked like. It turns out they are not ancient Roman aqueducts, but you can see how we thought that, right?

The Aqueducto Pugliese is actually the water company here, and they created all these waterways (pipelines I guess) to distribute water and put a bike trail on top. Pretty great idea!

The trails just kept going and going.

The trail did finally turn into a road, and I think we saw two cars.

And shortly we came to a paved roadway leading into Grattiglie. It also has an "old town", with twisty turns but no hilltop. The turns mean that the satellite gps gets lost, so it says "turn left" when the map shows a right turn, and it tries to pronounce the Italian road name (badly). So needless to say, a few wrong turns but we made it. A shower to wash off that fine white gravel dust, and we are looking forward to the Italian dinner hour - as early as 7:30 hopefully? We never did get lunch.

Tomorrow we have a little longer ride (75 km or so) to Porto Cesareo on the Ionian Sea coast.

Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 158 km (98 miles)

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