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The time in Polignano A Mare has been very relaxing. Since we had been out and about on Saturday to Matera, we took Sunday off to just walk around the town and explore. And Monday was more of the same – sleep, drink, eat, relax, repeat.
On Monday, we drove to Alberobello to see the Trulli houses. These are little stone houses that have been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. You can read all about them here. It was a quick drive from Polignano to see them so we were happy we took the time. They are very cute but the town is very very crowded with tourists. We had to return the rental car in Bari so we only stayed for 90 minutes walking around exploring, then we headed back to return the car. We booked the car from Naples to Bari which was a great decision because having a car in Polignano was a bit of a hassle. The car was big (since we used it to get my parents to San Fili) and the streets are narrow. In the end, we were happy to no longer have the responsibility. Tuesday and Wednesday were the same as Sunday, wander, eat, drink, relax, sleep, repeat.
We arrived in Florence on Thursday after an early morning out of the apartment and a long few trains to Florence. We took the first train from Polignano A Mare to Bari, then a long 4 hour trip from Bari to Rome, then a quick high speed trip (in style in business class) to Florence. It was thundering when we arrived so we taxi’d to the apartment instead of walking. Emily was just about to start exam week so we’d be visiting but letting her get her stuff done too. We had a fantastic dinner at the restaurant on her block called Acqua Al Due. It’s very good and we enjoyed our meal.
Friday, we started our day with a trip to my favorite caffe and a tour to show Lance where my school was, etc. We headed to Trattoria di Rocco in the Mercato Sant’Ambrosio for lunch. We saw Rocco though he didn’t chat with us and we all agreed that the food is cheap and delicious. Then headed to see the Basilica di Santa Croce. Emily went to this church with her class so she had lots of info to share. It’s the burial place of both Michaelangelo and Galileo. There is a monument to Dante here as well, but his body is actually buried in Ravenna. It’s a long and pretty interesting story of feuding independent nations prior to the unification of Italy which you can read about here. While we were in the church, there was an insane thunderstorm complete with massive amounts of hail. The church workers had to close all the doors and the basement filled with 10inches of water. Certainly we were happy to be safe from the storm in that exceptionally beautiful church.
Emily had school work to do so Lance and I went on a “apertivo crawl”. We headed to Babae to the wine window but the line was around the block so instead we headed right back to Bulli & Balene, the cicchetti place I tried when I was here in March. It was tasty of course. I showed Lance around the other side of the river for a bit, we found a nice place to do a wine tasting right on the river called Signorvino. As we were crossing the river, a great big rainbow came out and we, along with all the others on the bridge, stopped to enjoy it for a few moments. The last stop was to Berbere for the pizza fritti with ‘nduja. We really enjoyed walking around the city and despite the crazy weather earlier in the day, it was a lovely night.
Saturday was a day of wandering. Admittedly, we all are pretty tapped out on Italian food and I had been desperate for some guacamole, so after a bit of walking we decided to go to the ‘tex-mex’ place in the neighborhood. Asian food is relatively easy to find in Italian cities but Mexican has been pretty much impossible. I probably would have tried to find some in Rome but since I was sick, we didn’t eat out as much as we thought we would. In any case, we have walked past this tex-mex place enough times that it seemed like a good choice. We inhaled those nachos like we hadn’t eaten in years, and yes — we sucked down a margarita too! Honestly, it was not even close to my homemade but it did the trick. We wandered around all afternoon then headed back for a rest before dinner. Want to guess where we had reservations for dinner? Yep, a place called Indian Palace and yep, it was amazing. We love Indian food and decided to try it. My teacher Sara had told our class about it in March and I wanted to go with Lance so off we went. It’s in a neighborhood right by the Medici Chapel and there were other ethnic restaurants over there, including other Indian, Afghani and African. The dinner of yummy curry, rice and naan was perfect!
