2. Ostuni

Ostuni: Sun Aug 28 – Wed Aug 31

Accommodation: here and here.

Arrival Day: Sunday 28th.

It was another glorious morning for our last day on the Amalfi Coast and Mark celebrated this by having a final swim before we set off to Ostuni. We decided to get away early in the hope that, being a Sunday, there wouldn’t be much traffic on the road. There were lots of cyclists though which I’m sure was making Mark rather envious. Other forms of exercise, like walking, jogging etc, are quite challenging in this part of the world. There is no footpath along this narrow winding road of the Amalfi Coast and pedestrians take their life in the hands with each step.

It was a 4 hr trip down to Ostuni so we decided to break the journey up by stopping for lunch at Monopoli, an area I had heard about through listing to one of my Italian podcasts. Storm clouds were building on our drive into Monopoli though and, as bad luck would have it, the heavens opened just as we arrived. We managed to find parking and, scrambling with one umbrella, we decided to try and find a restaurant so as to escape the downpour. We eventually found a restaurant that wasn’t full but not before we were both drenched from head to toe. We looked a bit of a sight as we both squelched our way into the fine dining ambience of lovely La Locanda dei Pescatori, linen tablecloths and all!

Our meal was lovely and on leaving the restaurant we noticed how close we were to the harbourfront of the Old Town of Monopoli, an area which is just stunningly beautiful. We had run out of time to do much exploring on this top but we will definitely be heading back. One small irony after this lunch stop was that our bill for today’s lunch was €51 which was exactly the same as our bill for dinner the night before and the night before that. Weird huh?

It was a further 40 minute drive onto Ostuni after our lunch stop at Monopoli and the white-washed town, perched high on a hill, made for an impressive sight as it came into view on our approaching drive.

Our host had kindly found a street park for us, even if it wasn’t quite legal. It turns out our young host was the owner of the property and he completed a full renovation of the building two years ago. The accomodation, entered directly from a narrow cobbled street, is set over three floors and has been renovated to a high standard. This would definitely pass the Susan Scarf test, except maybe for the steep stairs between each level. Despite the stair challenge, the whole place was luxurious, I was in love with the historic stone dome ceiling, and the roof-top terrace with lounge chairs and BBQ was the cream on top. Our young host also had a keen eye for the kind of appointments travellers like in their accommodation with generous offerings of croissants, toast, jams, Nutella, tea, coffee and even milk along with other cooking staples being provided making a marked difference from our last accommodation.

We eventually ventured out at around 4pm to have a walk and explore the area. Our accommodation is located in a relatively quiet residential area but is just a few hundred metres from the busy tourist area of the Old Town. We didn’t get very far along with exploring the Old Town before taking a seat at a cafe / bar to do some people watching whilst having a beer and an Aperol Sprtitz. One thing I’ve come to learn very early on in this trip is how poor Australian bars, cafes and restaurants are in their rendering of the Apperal Spritz cocktail. They pale terribly in comparison to what you get throughout Italy.

Ostuni Old Town was busy on this Sunday afternoon but we were tired so headed home for an early night.

Check out the view from the roof terrace!

Day 2 Ostuni: Monday 29th

My early to bed the night before meant that I was awake in plenty of time to see the sunrise. I was awake at 4 am and the sun didn’t rise until 6:15 am. But what a treat it was; the view from the roof terrace was magnificent.

There wasn’t a whole lot planned for the day so we headed out for a morning walk through the Old Town before the crowds set in. Whilst there are plenty of tourists here, the town is not quite large enough to sustain a variety of walking tours and so our only guided tour option was the tuk tuk tour. Our young guide, Simona, took us on a 35 minute tour of the Old Town pointing out the major sights and giving us a bit of background on Ostuni.

Ostuni originated as a fortified hilltop city to protect from various sets of invaders over the centuries of its history. The “Città Bianca”, white city, sits around 200 metres above sea level and is a maze of ancient alleyways, staircases and arches and houses built upon houses offering the occasional glimpse out to the rather Adriatic Sea. Evening and early morning views out towards the sea reveals a scattering of twinkling lights from the significant boat traffic coming in and out of the nearby port of Brindisi.

Between Ostuni and the sea is a vast stretch of olive plantations. Simona told us there are 50 million olive trees in the region and only 4 million people. A balance she said was perfect! One of the oldest olive trees lies just outside of Ostuni and is thought to be 3,000 years old. The old olive trees have enormous trunks, larger than what you ever see at home in Australia, and Simona said some trees have a circumference of up to 10 m! The very old olive trees show significant gnarling and twisting and Simona told us the large twist can roughly be equated to a measure of 1,000 years of age.

One advantage of the tour was that Simona took us out of the Old Town to an area where we could get a better view looking back at the expanse of the walled city. This enabled us to see the clear distinction of the lower white washed section of the Old town versus the higher brown, or unpainted, stone section of the town. The higher, brown, section was where the nobility previously lived and the lower, white, section was where the poor people resided. The origin of the white colouring dates back to the Great Plague where the nobility forced the poor people to paint their properties in a white calcium wash so as to ward off infection. The misguided belief back then being that only poor people would suffer infection. To this day, all external walls within Ostuni Old Town must be painted white and the Government oversees the painting of the outer perimeter wall each year; it takes just one week to paint the entire outer wall of Ostuni!

At one stop on our Tuk Tuk tour we passed through a gap in the city walls and were amazed to see how wide it was. There were originally only 4 gates to the city. We learned that the walls were later excavated to cleverly allow for the construction of multi-level dwellings but their current use is primarily for hospitality and tourism as the majority of the local population live in the new town area of Ostuni.

We had a bit more of a wander around the Old Town and went up to the Cathedral after our Tuk Tuk tour. It was so hot and humid though which was rather draining so we stopped off to sit and have some soft drinks; lacking any motivation to do much else. The couple beside us were getting stuck into gelato and we think they may have made the wiser choice.

The weather started to look threatening so we headed home to bring in the washing and to rest up before heading out to dinner. Dinner tonight was meant to be at Dish but we cancelled that and headed to Ramunno Bistrot instead which proved to be a great option. The food was delicious and I would highly recommend.

We have one more day here in Ostuni but have decided to head back to Monopoli tomorrow given we loved what we saw the other day so I will post about that separately.