Puglia

We're in Ravenna now but I'll deal with that another time. The last few days have largely been spent down in Puglia - the 'heel' of Italy.

To explore the area we based ourselves Gallipoli, in an ancient Greek settlement with a pleasant old town on a tiny island jutting off the coast and connected by a bridge. From there we essentially had two days to explore the region.

Day one saw us driving along the east coast of Italy. We shot across to Otranto and then followed a coastal road all the way down to Leuca right on the tip. Mostly it was just a scenic drive with little beachy towns dotted along the way. At points you could actually see the Albanian mountains across the sea.

We stopped in at a few places along the way including Santa Cesarea Terme, a resort town with some charming but ridiculous looking Art Nouveau buildings and Casarano which boasts a fifth century church. Funny thing is, they only noticed it was a fifth century church recently.

Day two was largely spent in beautiful Baroque Lecce - the Florence of the south. We wondered around for a few hours taking in the beautiful streets, churches and public buildings, all very grand and ornate. Then for lunch we went to a recommended trattoria. Apparently bookings are essentially but we showed up just as they were opening and they slotted us in. It was a delicious local meal of fava beans and chicory followed by a chickpea pasta, both regional favourites. For secondi, what else does one eat in southern Italy: horse.

After that we headed down to Parco Naturale Regionale di Porto Selvaggio where we'd heard you could walk down to the beach for a swim. Not really knowing where the beach was, we just parked where we saw a bunch of cars and walked a good two and a half kilometers or so before coming across a secluded little bay with a scattering of families sunbathing. We had a rather quick swim as the first few inches of water was icy cold but the rest was lovely and warm which made for a strange swimming experience.

Since then it feels a bit as though we've just been driving. Google Maps tells me it's 800km between Gallipoli and Ravenna and we have taken a particularly scenic route. Yesterday we started off going to Locorotondo which some have claimed is the most beautiful city in Italy with it's whitewashed walls and red geraniums hanging from the windowsills. It was very pretty.

From there we headed to nearby Alberobello which is famed for its unique trulli buildings that were designed in such a way that they avoided taxation because they are built with dry stone. These days they just register as a non-doms.

Then it was up the coast, through Polignano A Mare for a quick look and then to Trani for a slice of pizza on their beautiful harbor.

We spent the night at San Barbato 113. Ariane had booked it because it meet my two basic criteria: it was cheap and was close to half way between Gallipoli and Ravenna. It was billed as a BnB on booking.com but turned out to be the back room of someone's house on a farm in the middle of nowhere. They had two dogs, a cat and a horse - all of which I'm allergic to - and it smelt of wet dog. I reached into my bag and immediately took two antihistamines which seemed to do the trick.

That said, we had a lovely meal in the nearest town, Scerni, and it was a very comfortable night's sleep. Just hilariously awkward.

Today we decided that we'd explore that area a little before realising that the path we'd chosen added three hours to a five hour trip and quickly abandoned. The roads around there were the worst we'd seen to date but it's a very beautiful mountainous bit of farmland. All the vineyards are cultivated in such a way that the vines are a bit higher off the ground and then have the leaves form a canopy, presumably to shade the fruit. The affect on the landscape is quite breathtaking with these enormous canopies of vine leaves starting to get their autumn colours and covering huge squares of mountainous land. I think we'd better return one day.

The compromise for abandoning our alpine adventure was a trip to San Marino - the worlds fourth smallest independent nation and lays claim to being the oldest surviving sovereign state.

We were going to give it a skip because the Lonely Planet gave it a pretty bland write up but we were thrilled we went. Città di San Marino is a bit of a fairy tail town perched high on a mountain top surveying its surrounds. The sky was rather moody and the surrounding countryside is rugged and littered with castles and churches perched on top of every peak. Quite breathtaking all in all.

I'll leave it there for now - it's aperitivo time in Ravenna. Word is there's some mosaics about here somewhere.