I try to post every day but sometimes life gets in the way. It unexpectedly did yesterday. Yesterday we needed to get some shopping in and shift south about 150 kilometers to Lecce. We were up early and got on the road with a plan to stop at a grocery when we saw one. Well about 40 kilometers from Lecce on the freeway we still hadn’t seen a grocery so we stopped and asked Greta for her advice. She said there was a Lidl 6 km’s away as the crow flies so we told her to take us there. 15 km’s of driving later we arrived at a very busy Lidl. Shopping done we continued south.
I had picked out a campsite that was very well reviewed on Park4night our favorite camping app. We arrived about 1 pm and the owner Luigi guided us into our spot. He then gave us a tour of the place in Italian which we understood a bit of, and ended at the bar where he gave us a taste of his homemade wine. While we were tasting our wine a Bulgarian couple came by and gave Luigi a hug and kisses as they were departing, we thought that was interesting, but later we would understand why. While we were sitting and trying the wine he pantomimed if we had had lunch yet. When we said no, he insisted we join him for lunch because we were family. What a welcome!
Throughout lunch Luigi continued to converse with us in Italian and occasionally German, while Ton and I tried to latch onto words we knew to follow what was going on. At the end of lunch Luigi told us he was going to have a family dinner and we should plan on attending, but we weren’t sure we understood correctly as it seemed too good to be true. He then also announced it was time for a nap and headed into his house.
We spent the afternoon relaxing, and during one of my walkabouts I struck up a conversation with our Swiss neighbors and they confirmed Luigi was hosting dinner around 8pm. Then about 7 pm the Swiss came by and announced dinner was ready, but Luigi says to bring your own plates, silverware, and glasses because he is not running a restaurant.
We were joined at dinner by the Swiss couple, a French couple, and an Italian couple plus Luigi and a friend. Only the Swiss could speak more than one language so they ended up being the translators for what was a wonderful multi-lingual dinner of mussels and grilled fish with lots of wine.
Just as we thought the evening was breaking up, Luigi brought out his guitar and we spent another hour listening to him play and trying to sing along. Luigi is a very good guitar player. Ton and I bailed out when two other Italian couples turned up from town and it looked like a lot more wine was going to be consumed. We need to be fit enough to go into Lecce tomorrow.