Alberobello, Matera and Otranto

This is day two of our three day land based tour of Puglia and motionless, real beds.  Alberobello is famous for it's limestone huts with conical roofs called Trulli. These date back to the 14th century. Unfortunately this place is not a secret and even in April there were hoards of people congesting the streets and detracting from the magic of the place. It felt like Toarmina all over again.

Despite the crowds we enjoyed walking around the town, imagining life in these curious mini homes.  We had a lovely hotel booked for that evening so at about 4pm we made our way there to make the most of it.

Squeezing a lesson in whenever theres a quiet moment.

The highlight of our little road trip came on the last day when we visited Matera. Wow -this place is breathtaking! Built into the side of a steep limestone gorge, this ancient city has been inhabited since ​the Paleolithic period (10th millennium BC), making it one of the oldest settlements in the world.

​The Sassi di Matera (Sasso Cavioso and Sasso Barisano) are ancient, inhabited cave networks forming a sprawling, complex city.

People lived like this as recently as 1950.

We drove around to the far side of the valley where the truly ancient caves were.

Bluey never let us down

---

We returned that evening to find Dragonfly had coped well with the winds and was in fine shape. It was still gusting around 20 knots which gave us a chance to test which is the most accurate weather forecast app -Windguru seems to win most of the time.

The wind had kicked up some swell so we kept the car for one more day and headed south to Otranto -a beautiful small town and anchorage we had to zip past a few days ago to reach Brindisi before the wind.

We started just outside the town with a cliff-side beach that promised so much but turned out to be unreachable from the land. The colours of the water and cliffs were stunning but the kids were disappointed not to be digging in sand.

I remembered to bring a polarising filter.

Lunch and letters.

By late afternoon the kids were done with walking so we submitted to the tourist trap of seeing the town by tuk tuk -the kids loved it and the driver delivered us to the beach so it worked out well.

This is a good time to mention one of the hidden costs of sailing with kids -losing stuff.  They are constantly putting their things down, walking away and completely forgetting what the did with them.  Here you can see the last known sighting of Theodore's second pair of sunglasses in two day. Decent polarised ones too.  Hats and shoes also constantly disappear. We put walkie talkies around the necks of the children in case they go missing too.

Otranto has some beautiful beaches, clear water and amazing rock pools.