Nine days into the trip we had our first day as tourists. Ostuni is a beautiful hilltop town about 8km’s from our campground. The campground we are staying in is across the street from the bus stop to town and the cost is €1 and it only takes 15 minutes so we joined about 5 other couples from the campground on the 10 am bus. Unfortunately our ride back to the campground was not as smooth.
It was a short walk to the main square for the town. The square was as typical full of restaurants serving meals, coffees and various alcoholic drinks. It was going to be a warm day so they were already doing a booming business. The town was surprisingly busy already with a mixture of Italian, and foreign tourists. At the beginning of the day the tourists were mostly Italian, by the middle of the day they were mostly American, and by the end of the day they were mostly Italian again, as the Americans we presumed had returned to their ships.
Ostuni is a typical hilltop walled town built far enough from the sea to be able to see the pirates and barbarians coming, but close enough to benefit from access to the sea. It is well preserved, and they have painted most of the town white which really adds to the beauty. We took a stroll thru a bunch of the back alleys scouting a restaurant for lunch and taking in the views. It is a very photogenic town and Ton was very happy, stopping every minute or two for a picture.
We spent about an hour and a half walking up and down staircases/roads, and Ostuni was a great town to get us back into enjoying being tourists. It was big enough to have a lot to see, but you could walk thru it in a couple of hours. We really enjoyed ourselves.
About noon we were looking for a beverage break and a snack as it was still too early for an Italian lunch. We found a little cafe that had been in business since 1950, and settled in for a couple of waters and a small local cake called Pasticcotti. We bought one as an experiment and as soon as we bit into it we wished we had bought more. It was like a really nice donut with a wonderful creme interior.
After our little snack we walked around the walls of the town. The views to sea were obscured by a smog of some sort, probably wild fire smoke as they have been having a lot of large fires in Greece and the Balkans.
By now the restaurants were starting to open for lunch and we decided to get a big lunch as we had not really been out since we arrived. Our first restaurant had a Michelin sign on the front of it and they turned us away as we do not look like we belong in a Michelin restaurant (actually they were fully booked.) Just down the street we had passed a pizza place that looked interesting. The restaurant occupied a little square on one of the walking roads, and took over all of the buildings on the square. Some were for dining, some were for food preparation and some were storage. It was a bustling place. We got a table outside of the building with the pizza oven. I ordered a pizza, and Ton ordered a pasta dish called Drunken Fettuccine. They were both delicious and immense. Adapting to Italian ways we lingered over our meal for a couple of hours and even managed to share a Tiramisu at the end. Given the quality and size of the portions it was a good value even with the “cover charge” factored in. This is a charge that nice restaurants add for the privilege of sitting at the table. I will have to remember to ask next time we eat whether there is a cover involved.
We decided to head back to the campground and there was supposed to be a bus at 2:55 back to Villanova. At about 3 pm a bus with Villanova on the marquee on the front of the bus pulled up, so we jumped on. The bus was full and we were in the back row with two young Italian women. The bus headed down the hill in the right direction and turned in to the train station, but we had stopped at the train station coming in so I was not worried. Most of the passengers got off except for Ton, myself and the two young Italians next to us, but instead of turning left to go the 3 km’s to Villanova it turned right and heading back into Ostuni. About 20 minutes later we were back at the stop we had gotten on at in Ostuni, and everyone got off. I looked at one of the young Italians and asked aren’t we supposed to go to Villanova and she said yes, so we followed her to the front of the bus where she and the bus driver got into a vigorous discussion about why the bus that said Villanova did not go to Villanova, but in the end we all lost and had to get off the bus. She then confirmed that the next bus wasn’t until 6:20. She said that they were going to try to call her boyfriend but he didn’t get off work for a while, though she offered us a ride if we wanted to wait.
We decided we would get a taxi back to the campground, we weren’t happy about it, but we didn’t want to wait two and half hours for the next bus. So our next chore was to find a taxi. I assumed there would be a taxi stand somewhere nearby. I was wrong. We saw a tour guide waiting at one of the tour buses so I asked her where we could get a taxi, she said it it difficult, but she would call one of the taxis and see if they were available. She then spent the next 20 minutes calling various taxis without success until she found one that could pick us up at 5:30 and take us to the campground for €30. We thanked her for her effort, but passed on the taxi due to the cost. After spending 20 minutes trying to find us a taxi she then apologized because the one she found us cost too much. She said she would give us a ride, but she had to give a tour soon.
By now it was about 4:30 so we went to a local cafe next to the bus station and ordered a beer and a water and sat down to wait for our 6:20 bus.
It turned out to be very interesting to watch the interactions of the cafe for the next two hours. There were three generations of family involved in running the cafe including a grandfather whose job was to sit at one of the tables and provide calm when conflict came up, as well as just seeming to enjoy talking to the customers. His son ran the bar and was busy most of the time behind the bar. The bar tenders son seemed to be the black sheep who tended to get too aggressive in deciding who can move chairs from one table to another to accommodate customers, with the grandfather having to mediate his bad decisions. It would have been more fun to watch if we were there voluntarily!
Finally about 6:15 we crossed the street to the bus stop, to catch our 6:20 bus. We had to get this one right as it was the last scheduled bus for the day. We met another couple from the campground so that was a good start as we now had numbers on our side. A couple of busses came and went with us now running to every bus that showed up to ask if they were the bus to Villanova, none of them were. At about 6:40 we were all getting nervous. At this point another young Italian women showed up who was going to the train station. We asked her about Villanova, she looked at the schedule and said not to worry, because Italians have a weird way of scheduling busses, and even though it said 6:20 on the schedule, that didn’t mean it would arrive at 6:20, but within 20 to 30 minutes of 6:20! There really is a method, but her English wasn’t quite up to making us understand. Finally a bus showed up, the Italian women went on to the bus for us to confirm it was our bus, and it was! So we arrived back about 5 hours later than we planned.
The one positive out of this, was every Italian we met today during our bus adventure absolutely went out of their way to help us with our dilemma. The two young ladies who confirmed we were on the right bus even though it didn’t go to our stop to start with, the women who spent 20 minutes trying to find us a taxi, and the young lady who tried to explain the mysteries of Italian bus schedules to us were all patient and cheerful in providing us help. Even the grandfather at the cafe kept looking over and giving us encouraging and wise smiles even though he didn’t know why were waiting. So while the experience of getting us home was frustrating, the Italians we dealt with during the adventure almost made it worthwhile!