Day 56: Lost in Ostuni

After breakfast in the cabin, we packed up and walked down to the car, where we had another chat to Ashlyn and Josh, the Australian rally drivers. After a while, we noticed that the ferry had stopped, so we bid them farewell, climbed into the car and drove ashore, watching as Italian passport control wrote on their car (almost certainly a clever ploy they'd made good use of throughout their journey to make border crossings go a bit more smoothly). It was an easy half-hour drive to our next destination – the hill town of Ostuni in Puglia, right in the heel of Italy. Again, we were very early, so we parked the car and wandered up into town for a quick look around. We soon found a nice bakery and introduced the girls to the wonders of proper focaccia, which we ate in a very pleasant park, and then re-discovered the joys of Italian coffee in the town square.

After a bit more aimless wandering, we went back to the car to meet Will, the Englishman who was renting us our apartment. He led us up and into the old town – a proper maze of narrow alleys and steep stairs. We were all reminded of Greece in general and Ano Syros in particular – the buildings were whitewashed and the whole place was surrounded by olive trees (Puglia produces about 40 per cent of Italy's olive oil; some of the trees are several thousand years old). We eventually reached the apartment, all puffing slightly at the effort of getting there. Kate had given me two options for apartments in Ostuni and I had naturally gone for the nicer, more expensive one – and when Will let us in, I was glad I had. It was gorgeous, with spectacularly high ceilings, a little terrace with an amazing view over the olive groves to the sea, another larger roof terrace higher up, and a funny little turret bedroom reached by a super-tight spiral staircase. Once we had settled in we had some awesome pizza for lunch at a little trattoria less than 50 metres from our front door.

After lunch we headed out in search of a supermarket, but we realised we had left the map Will provided us behind when we reached the bottom of the stairs, so ended up driving around in circles for far too long. Eventually, we stumbled across a Eurospin in the neighbouring town. This is an Italian chain we first came across in Sardinia when Zoe was still a baby – and it hasn't improved a great deal since then. It's very much in the Aldi/Lidl mould – cheap, but not all that cheerful. So we grabbed what we needed (including a couple of bottles of Best Brau beer) and then drove home.

I cooked dinner in the apartment and afterwards we went for a walk around the old town, stopping to have a little peek into Riccardo's – a bar/night club that's apparently popular with the Milan crowd, darling. The girls were fascinated by it and wanted to go back for another look and as we stood outside, who should come down some adjacent stairs but Ashlyn and Josh. They were on their way back to their car – the plan was to find a quiet spot somewhere and camp – and happily took us up on the offer to stay in our little turret room. After the girls went to bed, the four of us sat up and traded travel stories until after midnight.