Arriving in Puglia

 We left LAX on Monday afternoon on a Lufthansa flight to Munich. The flight was smooth and we arrived in Munich in plenty of time for our connection to Bari, Italy.

It seems that Bari is a great 'jumping off point' for Puglia as it has a fairly large airport and train station. Once in Bari, it's a pretty short train ride to most of Puglia. We arrived in Bari around 5:30 pm and took a very short cab ride to our hotel, the Grande Albergo Della Nazioni. Since we were a bit jet lagged, we decided to take advantage of the hotel's rooftop restaurant rather than venture into town and take our chances. This proved to be a good idea as the food was pretty good, although the service was incredibly slow.

The View from our Hotel room

The Shrimp and Artichoke Appetizer at the Rooftop Restaurant

Our first local wine of the trip

We are feeling good about the travel schedule of leaving the U.S. at 5 pm and arriving in the early to mid afternoon in Europe.  Neither of us sleep particularly well on planes, so the ability to arrive at our destination in time for dinner and then go to bed at a reasonable hour seems to work well. In the morning we went for a walk along the waterfront and had a quick breakfast before heading to the train station. 

Morning Walk along the Bari Waterfront

At the Bari Train station heading to Lecce





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Puglia Backroads Cycling Trip - Day Two

Image
 Il Melagrano to Conversano and Polignano On Monday morning we woke up at 7:30 am in time to have a quick breakfast, meet the group, and get ready for our first full day of cycling. On this first day or riding, I did not feel like having breakfast as I knew there would be food offered along the route as well as lunch. As usual, our guides had prepared a humorous description of the day's route -- this is referred to as the "Route Rap." On Backroads trips, one leader typically rides with the group while the other leader and support crew drive the vans as 'support' for the ride. Our Group listening to the "Route Rap" before the first full day of riding It's not always easy to take a selfie while riding at fast speeds! Here is a Strava map of my total ride for day two, which was about 44 miles. As can be seen by this map, we headed first up into the hills to Conversano (and these were some of our first significant climbs of the trip) where we stopped in ...
Read more

Puglia Cycling Day Three - Il Melagrano to Alberobello to San Domenico

Image
On the morning of our third day of the Puglia Backroads Cycling trip we woke up at the usual time and had a quick breakfast at our hotel, Il Melagrano. This was a 'Moving Day' so we had to leave our bags outside of our hotel room so the Backroads staff could transfer them to our next hotel, The Hotel San Domenico, near Monopoli. We departed at 8:45 am on our way to Alberobello where we were meeting up with a guide to give us a tour and also a demonstration of how to make mozzarella cheese. This was going to be a 50 mile day with some solid climbing, so I knew I wanted to start out slow. The scenery was beginning to get even more picturesque as we meandered through farms and meadows in the countryside. Jeff and Adam Riding in the Italian Countryside We arrived in Arberobello around 11 am and a few of us opted to do an extra 10 mile loop before meeting up with our tour guide. This is a common technique in Backroads trips. Oftentimes most of the group will prefer to take a break a...
Read more

Our First Day in Lecce

Image
On Wednesday morning we departed from Bari on our way to Lecce . It was an easy train ride of about 90 minutes as Lecce is only about 80 miles south of Bari and is near the Adriatic coast. While on the train, we could see gorgeous views of the Adriatic to the east and the wide open valleys of southern Puglia to the west. Lecce is in the Salento region, which is a province in Puglia -- it is the true 'Heel of the Boot' of Italy. Because of it's rich history of art and architecture, Lecce is often referred to as 'The Florence of the South.' Our hotel is called the Fiermontina Urban Resort and it is right in the heart of the city of Lecce. It is a beautiful, relatively new hotel. On our first night in Lecce we went to a restaurant that is affiliated with our hotel that is just a few blocks away. However, prior to dinner, we were invited to tour a local museum that is also affiliated with the hotel. The museum is called the 'M.A.M.A' museum . "Designed by ...
Read more