Somewhere south of Bari the trip counter notched up 1500 miles, almost half of it over the past three days in Italy. I still think what I said in the previous post about the improved standards of driving on the Milan 'tangenziale' holds true, but I'm hundreds of miles south of there now on the very lumpy-bump SS379 and happy to report that here in Puglia driver behaviour is as atrocious as ever with comical near misses occuring every couple of minutes.
Italy can be a frustrating place for visitors to navigate. Simple stuff gets over-complicated, like re-fuelling. The price of diesel displayed by the side of the motorway (€1.849) might be available if you are determined and intrepid. The first two lines are serviced by smartly attired attendants, at their pumps the price of diesel is €2.199. Only if you drive beyond them and squeeze onto the awkwardly positioned self service pumps by the cafe does the price match the advertised one. Even then, it's not really serve yourself, as soon as you lay a hand on the nozzle an attendant materialises beside you, takes it from you, expertly inserts it, engages auto-fill, then meticulously squeedgees your insect encrusted windscreen. So even when you get to pay the lower price you are still obliged to tip the attendant. It's a small thing, but here, as in other situations hidden complexities abound, little traps set to surprise simple minded northerners used to a more WYSIWYG culture.
But in the end Italy always works its charm, and you recall the small delights fondly while ignoring or forgiving the ambient low level aggravation. Also, you wise-up, with experience its possible to maximize the delights and dodge the pitfalls. For example Searchforsites and the Acsi App list scores of places to stay on the overdeveloped Adriatic coast. You don't need to consult the luke warm reviews to know most will be over-crowded, over-rated and overpriced in August. However, we studied our map carefully and spotted, just to the north of the Gargagno, two salt water lagoons. They seemed a little off the beaten track, development looked to be more limited within the Parco Nazionale Del Gargano di Lesina and the area appeared more soulful and empty compared to the concrete sprawl to the north. There were only two sostas and one rustic campsite in the area.
We chose the one in Lesina itself. The town appeared small on Google maps, which indeed it proved to be, but its narrow streets are closely packed into a rectangular grid and historically it was a place of some importance.
In the early modern period it was an archbishopric and even today some substantial, but ramshackle mansions are scattered about among the smaller cuboid houses.
Now the town specialises in inshore fishing on the big lagoon. Lesina's small fishing fleet is unusual in so much all the traditional small fishing boats are painted black or grey, whereas in most other places in the Med the clinker built craft tend to be painted white with jolly coloured symbols on the prow to ward off the evil eye.
Viewed from across the water, with its big white church and hotchpotch of buildings from different eras Lesina looks handsome.
We liked it a lot, there was something about it that reminded us of the seaside places in Sicily we visited, such as San Vito Lo Capo.
Italy can be quite touching at times. When I wandered up to Lesina's big church to take a photo I noticed all the lamp-posts around it were decorated with white ribbons folded into rose shapes.
They framed photos of a young couple who married here a couple of days ago. I thought the tradition was a lovely sentimental gesture, an unassuming example of Italian values, the deep seated sense that family and community are intertwined, and no one gets embarrassed about overt expressions of romance
It was very hot, on the sunny side of the street well over 40°. We were the only people out and about. However there was good reason why we were wandering the stifling empty streets . Google maps claimed that Gelago, Lesina' best regarded gelateria re-opened at 4pm.
When we arrived on the dot it was still closed, but there were hopeful signs, two women were sitting on tall stools on the pavement outside, and soon after we arrived a car drew up, its occupants lowered a darkened side window and peered at the shuttered entrance expectantly. About five minutes later a young man arrived, unlocked the place, glancing around, somewhat surprised that a small queue had assembled on a searing hot Wednesday afternoon in the dog days of late August, a week after Italy's schools had recommenced signalling the end of the busy summer season.
I don't why the others had turned up, but we had to be his most intrepid customers having read the rave reviews about the place over a week ago back at home. These better be as good as they claim, I remarked to Gill, we've driven over 2000 kilometres in anticipation.
We both chose a scoop of the Bufalo mozzarella, ricotta and pistachio gel, Gill combined this with a pistachio creme, I went with the owner's suggestion, a flavour called 'Gargagno' which was a creamy vanilla with orange looking highlights which turned out to be kumquat. Of course we filched a smidgen of each other's just to compare.
Our verdict - good but not outstanding, 8/10, but in a different league to anything you might come across north of the Alps.
Like many places you end up staying in Italy the sosta in Lestina was a tad idiosyncratic. You can't really fault its location, to the rear of a low cabin style restaurant on the esplanade which runs along the shore of the lake to the south of the town.
For some reason the pitches were crowded together, narrow bays separated by high kerbs which made reversing into them tricky. There are no facilities, neither a grey water emptying point nor chemical WC dump. One toilet shared between the 20 or so pitches - it costs €15 to park overnight, basically it's an expensive car park.
The real downside of place only emerged at bedtime. The interior of our bedroom windows' fly screens were covered in small mosquitoes, the opposite of what is meant to happen, the mesh is meant to keep them out rather than trap them in! Small plastic fly swat at the ready I set about eradicating the problem, when the body count passed the half century mark I stopped counting. A salt water lagoon in late August, we should have known better, we had a similar mossy Armageddon when we parked at Marsiellian Plage on the Etang de Thau some years ago.
The place had other irritations. The restaurant seemed to be hosting some kind of kids disco, the high decibel soundtrack was suitably puerile and interspersed with competitions and kareoke. It finished about 10.00pm. only to be replaced by an event at the football club behind us. The matches went on until midnight with much cheering and chanting. Then they had a party with a full-on DJ set accompanied by enthusiastic whooping. Around threeish the music stopped, then the revellers took to their hot hatches and drove up and down the lake front road peeping their horns and performing tyre squealing handbrake turns. At some point I must have dropped-off, because the next thing I remember was waking at first light when every hound, pooch and lapdog in the area began to bark, howl or yap simultaneously.
Italy is lovely, but it is not peaceful, sostas are often near noisy public spaces, but campsites can be frenetic too, especially in the summer. You can end up feeling frazzled and exhausted. The thing is it's not the irritations you remember, but the small delights.
Like the moment I hopped out of the van to catch the sunset but missed it by moments.The photo faithfully records the magical afterlight, but not the excitable euro-pop pumping out right beside me. The kids seemed to be having a great time though....
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