After a good night’s sleep everyone was feeling well rested and ready to go this morning. The kids played a spot of table tennis before heading into Ostuni, about 30 minutes north of the villa.
Ostuni, known as the White City, is a city built atop a hill with whitewashed houses and is visible miles before you actually get there. In the 17th century, a plague devastated Puglia and only a few of the villages survived. Ostuni was one such village and the villagers decided to paint each of the infected houses white with a mix of limestone dust and water. It was noticed that the areas surrounding the white houses had less infection so they decided to paint them all white declaring it a miracle (it was most likely the antibacterial nature of the calcium carbonate).
The city has become so popular that the government now pays half the cost of homeowners repainting their homes every two years to keep them white.
Upon arrival in Ostuni, we went straight to a car park at the bottom of the town although we had a few issues making payment as we didn’t have any cash, the credit card wouldn’t work and the parking app they tell you to use couldn’t locate the car park. Luckily there was another park across the road with an attendant, so we moved to there and then headed off into the newer part of town in search of an ATM so we could pay them upon our return.
Once we had sorted some cash (although it turned out there were loads of ATM’s in the old town) we walked up into the old town. It is a labyrinth of lanes, staircases and views of the endless olive trees in the Valle d’Itria. You come into the main piazza, Piazza Della Liberta, quite quickly where there are numerous eateries as you would expect (all charging that much more than those off the beaten track, but still quite affordable), a baroque obelisk, Colonna di Sant’Oronzo, which honours the patron saint of Ostuni, and the Chiesa di San Francesco d’Assisi. We had a look inside the pretty Chiesa di San Francesco d’Assisi.
We wandered the lanes looking at the pretty houses, the shops and views over the valley.
At the top of the old town is the Ostuni’s Cathedral, Cattedrale Santa Maria Assunta. It was built in the 15th century in the late Gothic style, rare in Puglia where most of the churches are austere Romanesque or ornate Baroque.
We walked under the Arco Scoppa which is an elevated passage between bishop’s palace and the seminary originally built out of wood and later replaced by a stone structure to provide a safer passageway.
Around the corner was a stunning view over the Valle d’Itria and the pretty doors of Ostuni. We decided it was time for a gelato and sat eating it whilst admiring the view.
We continued walking the laneways and looking in the souvenir stores before finding a place for lunch at the bottom of the old town, OperaPrima Restaurant and Pizzeria overlooking the Valle d’Itria and the Church of Our Lady ‘della Grata’.
https://www.operaprima-ristorantepizzeria.it/en-gb
We had a selection of local cold meats and some pizza which was all delicious.
After lunch, I took TJ and Greer back into the old town to Cremeria La Scala at the bottom of the Monsignor Antelmi Staircase in Via Vito Tamborrino (a small piazza off the main piazza) for a gelato. These were infinitely better than the first place we went to, and we would highly recommend it.
http://www.cremeriaallascala.com
We went back to the restaurant to meet Mark & Sophia and walked back to our car and headed home.
Back at the villa we all enjoyed some time in the sun and pool and lazed away the afternoon.
In the early evening we headed back to the Co-op supermarket in Brindisi for some supplies (it was much quieter today). It was then home for a bite to eat, some family TV time and bed.