Fixing a toilet to find artifacts dating back to B.C. times for our 26th

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12/23/22 | Lecce, Puglia > Woke up near Gallipoli + walked around at sunrise visiting the pigs. Pressed on inland to Lecce. Went to Lecce once before but briefly. Walked around + ate lunch at Volo, had burrata caprese + ciceri e tria (pasta w/ chick peas). Then went to Museo Faggiano... crazy mom + pop museum that came to be cuz some guy (Faggiano) bought this old house in downtown Lecce to open a trattoria + him + his son were working on the toilet, looking for a broken sewage pipe + started coming across all these archaeological finds dating back as far as B.C. times. La signora Faggiano was at the entrance when we arrived + gave us an impromptu spiel explaining how they bought this place + discovered all this stuff (which obviously put a damper on them fixing their toilet + opening a trattoria). We walked through the maze of the old building turned excavation site, down spiral staircases through the various floors, 4 levels in all w/ glass floors in between at select parts so U could see through to the cisterns, tombs + secret tunnels of various different eras. The artifacts (5,000 in all) were haphazardly housed in ramshackle displays w/ random other stuff interspersed... how a museum shd be. Lecce is a proper town where people live year round so lots of people out + about. Warm enough to have an apperetivo at an outdoor cafe, then dinner at La Cucina di Mamma Elvira, fava bean puree w/ cicoria + orchiette w/ broccoli rabe... vegans could do alright in Puglia.

sunrise at tenuta negroamaro

 

the garden

 

saying goodbye to the frisky pigs (even tho both are female)

 

Lecce

 

 

 

 

the castle

 

Napoli port

 

down into museo Faggiano

 

 

 

some of the artifacts

 

 

#37 inscription reads ... NOBIS QUIS CONTRA NOS (...who can be against us?)

 

i got 2 turntables + some broken plates

 

rooftop

 

Roman amphitheatre

 

 

 

 

12/ 24/22 | Ostuni > Our 26th anniversary! This was the trip we were supposed to be taking on our 25th anniversary, but instead we're doing it on our 26th revolution around the sun as a state-decreed couple. No album this year to commemorate our anniversary as in recent years, the double album from last year will have to do + when we get back we'll finish the album in the works. Woke up + ate breakfast outside on the roof... reading about how most of the U.S. is socked in w/ insanely cold temperatures + blizzards + here we are w/ blue skies + 60°F. We tried to find an alternative from the autostrada to make our way back north, but wasn't so interesting, but interesting glimpse of what most of Italy looks like... in between the occasional "quaint" hilltop town are paved grids w/ rebard + cinder-block buildings + Eurospin supermarkets + lots of traffic. Made it to our next masseria (Salinola) in the outskirts of Ostuni. Walked into Ostuni on the small weedy shoulder w/ cars zooming by. Walked around Ostuni + ate at Osteria Del Tempo Perso, appropriately named for our current obsession w/ time ("Osteria of Lost Time"), tho was disappointed they didn't have madeleine cakes or lime flower tea on the menu. Xmas eve dinner we had at our masseria... 1 of our first meals this trip where we were not the only ones in the restaurant, people-watching the various tables around us.

Ostuni + the distant sea

 

 

 

red shrimp carpaccio w/ burrata + beluga caviar

 

 

 

 

masseria du jour

 

fireplace in the room

12/25 > Xmas morning. Walked around on the backroads near our masseria, through olive groves w/ wild flowers. Even tho on narrow desolate backroads on Xmas morning w/ no oncoming cars in site, cars will speed by + not budge an inch, at one point we sprained our ankle + face-planted into the gravel trying to get into the shoulder/ditch to avoid them (+ they didn't slow down one bit to see if we were OK)... Such asshole drivers. The nice thing about Italy tho is that there's hardly any private property + U can wander around thru fields without worrying about whether some 1 will shoot U like in the U.S. + if U do encounter dogs they are usually friendly + not trained to attack.

 

 

 

1060 <(current)> 1062 > Masseria hopping across Puglia to be compliant w/ anonymous materials
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