Dig, Lazarus, Dig (Bari and Lecce)

Our last full day in Bari was marred by the weather, dear reader. It was windy, and chilly - for here; the locals were all wearing coats and jumpers. Squalls of rain swept in intermittently and without much warning. It was not going to be a day to stray far from the hotel.

In itself, that was ok because we had done most of the things on our list. The only outstanding item was the opera house, Teatro Petruzzelli, but in all honesty I wasn't that keen. We did La Scala in Milano last month and we've seen houses of opera in Paris, Barcelona, Oslo, Vienna and Sydney of course. The idea of turning up in the hope of getting a ticket for the only time slot of the day in this weather, with a couple of cruise ships in port ... yeah, nah.

Ok, before I forget, we have crossed the 'beer line'. How to explain ... back in the day, Tasmania had two brewers, Boags and Cascade. There was an invisible line across Tassie and when you crossed it, you changed to the other beer. It appears there is a similar thing in Italy. At some point, we switched from drinking Moretti to Peroni. I mean they're both good and I'm not going to argue the virtues of one over the other.

The only site I wanted to revisit was the "stunning wire mesh installation" of Edoardo Tresoldi. We walked past it on our first day, not really knowing what it was or the story behind it. It is located in the aptly named archaeological precinct San Pietro. And I assumed, incorrectly, that access would be more open and revealing there.

The mesh makes it look blurred.

We walked the 15 minutes to the site, located on the edge of the old town, to find it is still a work in progress, after four years. The piazza side of the site is boarded up the same as it is on the road. There is a series of boards explaining the work and its significance, but no access for a closer look.

It looks like a cathedral from a distance and is not blurry at all. The eye can see through the mesh which creates a clear image. The camera can't adjust like our eyes do. 

A logical conclusion would be that a cathedral stood on the site. But, no. It is on the site of a former hospital that was collateral damage when the Germans bombed a US ship moored in Bari during WW2. I don't think Trump has claimed credit for ending that war. Yet.

Being the intrepid travellers that we are, we walked back into the maze of streets that is the old town and chose streets at random. We ended up back at the castle and then decided to check out the local street markets. It was like a garage sale at your nanna's place. Lots of kitsch from the '70s and objets d'art that no-one ever found a use for, old books, second hand records and hand made jewellery. Nothing to hold my interest for any longer than it took to walk the length of the market.

Not worth the walk.

Back at the hotel, we researched some of the other restaurants recommended by Adriano and prepared a list of things to do in Lecce.

The day ended with a bottle of rosé made from a grape we've not seen in Australia. It is now Jayne's new favourite. And left over pizza from last night's dinner.

Grape variety: bombino.

The locals are very proud of their wines, particularly rosé, so I imagine I will be seeing more of this on the table over the next couple of weeks.

Monday

Another transit day, a relatively short train journey to Lecce, the sworn enemy of all people from Bari. Lecce is sometimes referred to as the Florence of the South because of its baroque architecture.

The day began with probably the best weather we've had. A pity we weren't staying around to enjoy it. Breakfast over, we returned to our room to pack and wait. We had a midday check out and our train didn't depart until 12:45pm. If it was on time. Bahahahahaha.

The view from the breakfast terrazza.

Shortly after 9:30am, we could hear what sounded like a protest rally. A quick internet search revealed it was the striking public transport workers, meeting in the government square not far from our hotel. Their chanting and singing carried very clearly to us. The strike concluded at 12:30pm and we would be on our way by then, but would be sure to stay away from the rally.

Trenitalia continued to defy belief and the train arrived early. I should have become suspicious when we tried to board the train and our door was blocked with serving trolleys on board. Down to the other end of the carriage and we push our bags through to seats 14C and 14D to find ... nothing. They didn't exist. We ventured through to the next carriage to be told to return to our seats. I said they didn't exist, nor did seats 15c and 15D also assigned to two other Australians. The trolley person forced me back into carriage 3 and walked us to one of the attendants who looked at our tickets and said we had been re-assigned. I'd like to re-assign a few Trenitalia workers.

This is the second time this has occurred. I understand changes happen when carriages are switched in and out, but they have our details, they knew there was a problem because we were assigned new seats. Why couldn't they email? Or send a message in the App?

Anyway, we had seats in carriage 2. The trip was uneventful. We arrived in Lecce on time, walked the 20 minutes to our apartment and then had to wait 10 minutes until 3pm because all access was electronic and linked to that magic hour.

There were two other groups of people waiting for their access to be granted and at 3 pm, all doors opened and we were inside a very spacious second floor apartment with a living room, kitchen/dining area, bedroom, bathroom, balcony and a European laundry - with no washing machine in it! Not happy since we specifically seek out apartments with decent showers and washing facilities. We had passed by a laundry off the main foyer on the ground floor but it was being used by the building cleaners to launder linen from vacated apartments. 

Upon sending a message to the apartment guide robot function, the only reference to laundry facilities was this common room - permitted hours of operation: 9:30am to 3:30pm. Pretty rich considering the commercial washing was being done in that time period and there are probably upwards of 15 apartments in this building. Luckily, we are not in dire straits and will probably delay our washing until Matera. When you are on the road for over two months, however, laundry is a thing and we are not impressed.

Anyway, we had less than an hour until we were to meet our guide for a hidden gems and tasting tour of Lecce. We were to do this on the morning of the second day but as we have already found out, arrangements made from Australia can be, and often are, changed. Instead of 10am Tuesday, we headed into the old town for a 4:30pm rendez-vous with Clothilde, our guide.

A fountain outside the Castle of Charles V (from somewhere).

On the walk from our apartment into the old town, we had to make a slight detour as one of the roads has been entirely dug up. It looked like typical roadworks, until I noticed one of the workers using a trowel, not a bulldozer, to do the excavation work! I mean over-employment is a thing, but that is ludicrous. Interesting, but no time to stop and ponder this strange observation. 

Our initial walk into Lecce revealed a town uniformly built out of a very light coloured sandstone that gives a golden glow to the place in the late afternoon sun. (Best viewed in the early morning and late afternoon when the light is softest). There were still tour groups around as we found ourselves in one of the main squares, en route to our meeting place, outside the Basilica of Santa Croce.

What? No Lions?

Immediately, as we entered the piazza, in front of us was the Roman amphitheatre, enclosed in the middle of the square, going down below street level. A little further along was another smaller excavation site with a number of different levels of ruins revealed. 

Towards the end of our tour, Clothilde actually explained that the ruins had all been accidentally uncovered when various development works were being carried out. The amphitheatre brought a building project to an end and in fact, only half of the colosseum (and it was a colosseum with massive arches, well before the one in Rome) has been unearthed because the rest lies under multiple buildings around the piazza and into the dug up street that we had passed. Again they had decided to do some improvements and found the other end of the amphitheatre - hence the trowel. Assume that street is not reopening anytime soon. 

Expect the unexpected. Like the Spanish Inquisition.

The other fenced off ruins were supposed to reveal more of the amphitheatre but instead uncovered layers of buildings going back to Norman and Byzantine eras, all built on top of each other. Oops. Gives a whole new meaning to "Dial before you dig."

Anyway, we made our way past the excavations, through the narrow streets to the "Queen of Lecce Baroque" as our guide labelled Basilica Santa Croce at the commencement of the tour. The façade is so ornate, you could stand to look at it for 10 minutes and not take in all the detail that has been worked into the exterior. It is overwhelming in its intricacy and we had not looked inside. That will happen in the days to follow.

It is too big to capture in one photo.

With the doors.

The levels of the building have been added over time and the progress has been date stamped and  carved into the decorations. Because it is so busy, you need to know where to look though to see these details. 

A short look at the Prefecture next door gave us an inkling into the recurring theme of religious palaces being acquired as public buildings - convents, monasteries, seminaries all now housing the department of justice, the prefecture etc. All of these grand buildings are adjacent to various churches that adorn the old city, all of them testaments to the Lecce Baroque style. In his time Napoleon influenced these changes.

As part of the tour, we actually only went inside one of the many churches, Chiesa di Sant'Irene. This church has multiple side altars that again capture the intricacies of this particular style with depictions of fruit, flowers, ornate spiralling columns, and creatures, all contributing to a complex symbolism and story telling of both Christianity and the history of this ancient town.

A side altar.

Another one. Not too busy?

Lecce was in fact originally called Lupiae by the Romans and the city's emblem is a she wolf under an oak tree, many of which are planted around the old town. The wolf features frequently as does Saint Oronzo, who, during the plague which devastated populations across Europe, is credited with the miracle  that allowed Lecce, Ostuni and Brindisi to be spared. Oronzo features in most churches as well as being captured in bronze (twice) in the main piazza.

Lecce is a city of artisans of all types, jewellers, painters, iron workers, tailors, designers, potters but the standout craft is papier mâché. No, I'm not talking about the sort of stuff you produced in primary school art classes (ah, the memories, all bad). This is serious business with multiple layers contributing to an art form that is sold in multiple shops but also adorns most streets and features heavily in church interiors. This also an inter-generational endeavour, passed down through families. The accident of birth can be cruel.

Paper mache (in Australia).

Papier mâché (in France).

Of course, our tour took us to the Piazza del Duomo and the Cattedrale of Maria Santissima Assunta with its bell tower, 73 metres, the highest point in the town. This was a spectacle of Baroque buildings on all four sides of the square, beautiful in the twilight but magically transformed when the lights suddenly came on while we were looking at the cathedral. The ethereal quality was even more present since we were almost by ourselves after the departure of the day tripper groups (and some swift editing work of the photos).

The Cathedral, actually a side entrance.

The bell tower.

The Bishop's house.

The Cathedral in less flattering light.

To cap off this special experience, we were then led over to a shop on the piazza, run by the most joyful man, who plied us with rosé and then introduced us to ... limoncello balls!!!! OMG - imagine jaffas but made of limoncello. But better. There were variants with orange and chocolate but bags of these are coming home with us. (Well that is the theory, if they don't arrive, forget you ever read this).

Soon we were back in the main piazza, having criss-crossed the old town and, as the rain very lightly started to fall, it was time to bid Clothilde a fond farewell after 3 wonderful hours of introduction to her city. It's now over to us to explore for ourselves with a context and a history behind this ancient town.

On our way home, we felt we needed to eat some dinner but the place Clothilde had recommended was closed on Mondays. We went to the place next door because it was open and it was raining. The less said about that experience the better.

Oh, the title? I'm too tired to explain, surely you get it, dear reader. Here is the link for Dig, Lazarus, Dig! by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

Home was only minutes away in the light drizzle. Bed was welcome.

Alla prossima.