Last day in Fasano

[5 March 2004]

Yet another in a seemingly long line of leisurely days. Truth be told (and it will) we didn't have much choice. 

Anyway, after breakfast we left for Locorotondo about 10 am. It’s a short drive, only about 8 or so kms from Fasano but we decide to take a bit of back road over the Murge (the ridgeline which runs parallel with the sea) to get there. 

We find a place to park right off (surprise) and before we can get out of the car two policemen pull up and point out where we can buy our parking tickets. It turns out to be a business directly in front of our car. Nice gesture. 

And speaking of parking your car some of the towns in this area use the parking ticket machines but a great many of them use a rather different and quite novel method. You look for a sign with the big blue P on it and which lists the hours for parking etc – in Locorotondo the sign was in English and Italian but this is not true everywhere. Where the sign is located there is a business that sells the cards. They look like scratch-off lottery cards and you buy blocks of 30 minutes. We wanted two hours so we were given four cards which the person selling them then scratched off the date, the time, etc. Quite awkward it seemed to us. Anyway you place cards on your dash like you would a normal parking ticket and you’re set.

During our stroll around Locortondo we bought some of the locally produced white wine (for which the town is famous), but finding little else open we returned to the car and drove toward Bari on back-roads. We cruised through and/or around Putignano, Turi and near Mola di Bari we got back on the superstrada and headed home for lunch of salad, cheese and wine.

For our last meal we opted to eat at the Masseria and spend the rest of the day relaxing, packing up our things and working on our Italian, which is in serious need of work indeed. 

Dinner was again wonderful. Since there was only one other guest staying besides Susie and me our host set us all up for dinner in a little side room with a large fireplace to help take the (significant) chill off the evening. Food was delicious as usual: started with eggplant, fried artichokes, pureed fava beans and small panzarotti (little pockets of dough with various fillings). For primi we had a simple orchiette (“tiny ears”) pasta with a simple, tasty tomato sauce. For the secondi we had grilled lamb with raw chicory and fennel pieces.