23.10.2020-The city whose name must not be mentioned

23.10.2020

Dear friends,

today was the day of beautiful weather, hot sun, and unfound caves.

It all started with a good morning mumbling out of pure friendship and of course me sitting around senselessly to prepare Paps for the upcoming hours right from the start of the day. The first problem was getting out of Bari, as the GPS didn't really help us with its "Searching for GPS" and too many beautiful roads were closed, so we had to switch to using our phones to get out at all. After at least half an hour of driving around, we ended up taking a different route to our destination each time, much to the dismay of the nice lady giving us directions. I have now switched the voice to male, to Papa's great displeasure.

The big problem only arose because we had to go inland again to see a certain city, where there are, to say the least, frequently confusing paths. But let me tell you this: we made it, and thereby discovered the first Italian city with enough parking spaces. Even we managed to secure a spot right by the road, without having to park a kilometer away. We were very pleased with ourselves and in case you're wondering where we were, the city was called Gravina in Puglia (but please never ask me for the name, I only read/wrote it from our map just now).

Once again, we stood out like the young pups. I'm still not quite sure why: maybe it's our composition or my tights, Papa's short shirt, or our identical haircuts. I really don't know, but the people here seem to like staring very noticeably, whereas in Germany at least half of them try to make it inconspicuous.

In the city-that-shall-not-be-named, we quickly reached the old town, with its narrow streets, a beautiful karst gorge, and winding paths that just end. In a church, a nice man informed us about all the pictures and sights in the building, in the city, and in the surrounding area, although I must add that he didn't speak a word of English and we didn't speak a word of Italian. It worked out well, and after he handed us a business card for a restaurant and pretended to eat more and more of his invisible noodles with an invisible fork, we said goodbye to him and got a really good view of the beautiful bridge and the opposite side for the first time. My desperate attempt to stay as close to the cliff as possible was rewarded with us standing in front of bricked-up walls and having to return to the main road, but eventually we made it. To our surprise, the railing on one side was definitely two meters high, while on the other side it was only half a meter high. Probably in case enemies approach from the direction of the church, on the side with the high wall, they wouldn't be able to see the fleeing population. But if the army came from the other side, it could only consist of blind and old people, because then you wouldn't have to worry about visibility, as they would never be able to see beyond the three hundred meter distance without glasses.

No, honestly. The bridge with the old town behind it was really breathtakingly beautiful, and the fact that little lizards were running about on all the stones made me a real fan of this place. Our attempt to find a signposted cave, which I found and pointed out to Pa, saying "Look, that must be it, there were even signs in front of it," but his firm conviction that we couldn't have arrived yet led us to walk a good distance further to attend a small gathering of people who apparently wanted to change something and discovered many stepping stones showing different letters. Since the sun was really getting to me by now, I just sat down and watched a few ants at work while Papa found a two-faced stone. At Italian lunchtime, we made our way back to the car, treated ourselves to a small meal, and off we went again to the beach and the beautiful sea. After passing at least twelve closed campsites and accepting a nice closed tunnel, our route took us along a 30km long road in winding lines along the coast. You can't imagine how slowly we were moving. The fact that the now silenced gentleman complained about the speed limit only three times says a lot about the road, but we arrived. The tiny coves with white sandy beaches that can regularly be found between the rocky coastlines can only be described as beautiful, the only downside being that you can't use them as they are always private property. But even our camping site, which we reached in the dark, is right on the beach and tomorrow we can indulge in my favorite activity. Doing nothing.

See you soon and don't be downcast by bad weather, the sun will come out again.