24 October 2024–Dad says he is working on only a few more cylinders. Good sign! Got him to go for breakfast a short distance from our Trollope, trying to a void making him walk up and down sloping walkways and getting unnecessarily winded. He is still weak. Dad ate some fruit—good! Staying away from grease, buttery stuff…. I had my favorite: a fresh cornetto/croissant! The kind waiter opened a cordoned area at my request so that I (and other visitors) could take some panoramic photos of the trulli in Alberobello nearby. They are so very pretty to see! Oh, by the way, today is SUNNy and warm! I LOVE waking up to this weather! We drove to Ostuni in Puglia. On the way, as we approached Ostuni, we saw some HUGE olive trees! My cousin, Alfredo, had told me about a place nearby that had olive trees that were 1000+ years old! These must be what he meant! WOW! Their trunks were lumpy, twisted, thickened, nubby, arthritic-looking, cavernous….These trees are still producing olives! Alfredo told me that recently a virus/disease infected some of the old, old trees, and they had to be cut down. What a shame, and what a loss! BUT—fortunately, many old trees remain! Ostuni is known as The White City (But, actually, Alberobello is white, too). Ostuni is in the province of Brindisi, sill in the region of Puglia. It is a White City because it is located uphill, and the buildings are white. I walked up steep uphill slopes and large white stairways to get to the top of the hill, white all around me. I walked on steps that had blue printed lettering, spellling out verses or famous sayings from prominent people, such as St.-Exupery, Aristotle, Ann Frank,….I saw houses, perhaps some vacation homes, but generally, dwellings all the way up the slope and top of the hill. I saw a church that seems to have been converted to an exhibition hall, today, the banners at the front of that building announced a Mexican art exhibition. But…no historic center like others I had seen. I asked two locals where the historic part might be. One said that all of this was historic. Two others said that I had to go downhill to a large piazza with an obelisk and then climb uphill on the other side from there. Uggh! But I did it! Just as the Locals had told me, a very old, tall column of St. Oronzo, the patron saint of Ostuni, stood at the center of the piazza. There were some wonderful panoramic views of the olive groves, a beautiful church dome, some farms below, but I did not see much else that I thought I should have been seeing. There were shops in the piazza, cafes, restaurants, and so on, butt I ventured up to wherever it would lead me. All the way up, I was surrounded by white everything, shops, cafes, restaurants, and so on lining the cobblestone street. Little charming narrow roadways veered off to the sides at times, some decorated in interesting and creative ways. I saw arched walkthroughs, a large concrete, old overhead arched entry way to the section of town above, Of course, I saw a very old Cathedral, dating to perhaps 400 A.D., I’ve read, and several more churches. According to the internet, most things are white in this city because each year everything is painted white to keep the buildings cool during the hot summer months. Toward the top oof the hill, in a little bit of flat land containing a quiet little bar, I did find the blue and green door that the Internet has called, “The most photographed door in Ostuni” or “the Instagram door,” so I took a selfie in front of it. But, actually, I found a second door, similarly painted and covered by a glass storm door of sorts down below toward the Piazza, but a cat was looking at itself in the glass door, so I did not disturb. I walked on. The White City, in my opinion, must also be admired from outside of it, though. Getting a good view and a photo of it was not an easy task because of traffic patterns, narrow, winding roads, and other obstructions. But I walked where I could and captured the White City the best that I could. I walked…because Dad sat in the car during this visit to the White City. He waited while I explored and brought pics back to share with him. He is a little better but not in shape yet to climb the steep slopes. But…progress was made a little bit later at a McDonald stop in Fasano, near Ostuni. He was able to eat a McDouble and an ice cream sundae! My dinner was composed off mini-pucce (a puccia is a commonly-sold small bun that is sliced and fillled with local ingredients. It is sort of like a small round of bread/bun). My pucce were filled with burrata, black olives, eggplant, zucchini, tomato, and whatever vegetable. Of course, they were sliced so that the filling would be sandwiched beneath the two halves of the bread. They were good, and I loved trying something commonly eaten by the Locals! We ate dinner in the piazza at one end of our trullo’s street. It is a lovely piazza at night, with white stone pavement that looks like shiny marble under the lights. There were other streets in Alberobello that we could see that had trulli, not just our own. The distinctive conical roofs of the trulli add charm wherever they are located, in my opinion, both by day and night.
So, I love our trullo in which we are staying, and I love our area in Alberobello with the charming trulli and cobblestone street and pathways. I’ve thought that if we were to re-write the story of Little Red Riding Hood, I would be Granny/Nonna living in a trullo! Here’s what the revised story might look like: I am the nonna. I live in the trullo. Little Red Riding Hood skips through the narrow cobblestone streets to bring me custard and cream-filled pasticciotto sometimes. There is a neighborhood cat that roams free. The cat asks Little Red Riding Hood for the custard, but Little Red Riding Hood delinks. The cat, angry, lets the neighborhood rats live. One rat grew and grew, bigger than granny, and became hungrier and hungrier to compensate for its large size. One day, having run out of enough food to eat, it ate Granny, and later, Little Red Riding Hood, too. Worried, mom came to look for Little Red Riding Hood and Granny, bringing a new batch of custard. The cat asked for the custard, and mom gave him some, saving the rest for Granny. Moved by the Mom’s generosity, the cat caught the rat by the tail and swung it accidentally into a wall. The cat was so full and distended that the stomach just burst, and out jumped granny and Little Red Riding Hood. Everyone rejoiced and feasted on Mom’s remaining custard while the cat devoured the rat, a bit at a time because the rat had grown so big, and the cat was not hungry for a very, very long time. The End.
Our Travels 