Thursday, 7th April 2016
Today has been simply wonderful. On the face of it we have done very little, in fact the only thing we did was to purchase five sausages. It was late morning by the time we pedalled off to Montopoli.After yesterday's early flight a bit of a lie in and relaxed start seemed in order. The local village is really quite lovely. Italian hilltop villages can be categorised into meringues and sausages. The former have streets that spiral up conical hills like piped cream, the latter spill their way across outcrops and escarpments like strings of sausages. Given all the hype in the tourist brochure about Monopoli's venerable macerria, then it seemed appropriate that the local settlement was of the sausage type.
After buying the beauteous bangers we wandered about a bit taking photos is the ruined fortifications and the old houses. It was a lovely day, warm with a pale mist softening green hills dotted with olive farms. We rode a couple of kilometres beyond the village down empty narrow lanes - the verges covered in flowers, particularly purple orchids big and small and scarlet clusters of poppies.
After lunch we did not feel like dashing about so I gave Maisy a good old wash. It's over six months since the van has been cleaned on the outside, so ablutions were well overdue. It took the best part of two hours, and though I failed to make Maisy gleam, at least she does not look now like a drop-out from the Paris to Dakar trans-Saharan rally.
Another day slipped by, with shadows lengthening out came the Cadac - just how awesome were the venerable butcher's sausages? The answer - yum! Especially so, when accompanied by grilled courgettes and red peppers, a tomato salad and a bottle of Morellino de Scansano, a southern Tuscan red from the hills above Grosseto. Blog global - eat local!
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