An Italian Road Trip

One of my favorite photos of myself is of me with my best friend Dean, drinking giant coffees at a Dunkin Donuts in a travel plaza off the Indiana Toll Road. Although it was about 30 minutes away from campus, this was the closest Dunkin Donuts to Notre Dame, so we used to hop in my ’92 Thunderbird and trek out there whenever we needed to get some hardcore studying done. Or just hardcore needed to get away from campus. I don’t remember all of the logistics, but because we were extremely poor college students, we had figured out a way to avoid paying the toll that involved an always-terrifying U-turn and some community theater-level acting on Dean’s part whenever we would get off the toll road at the Notre Dame exit. Needless to say, Dean and I love a good road trip. So when we were discussing what we wanted to do when he visited me in Italy, we decided on renting a car and driving down to the “heel” of Italy: Puglia.

Olives in Ostuni

You know how when you learn to drive, they tell you to be a “defensive driver”? Well, within three minutes of driving off the Hertz lot in Naples, I realized that if we were going to survive, I needed to do the opposite. I gripped the steering wheel, leaned forward, and told Dean to hold on. Fifteen minutes later, we were sailing on wide-open highways and I kept insisting on being congratulated for my driving prowess every fifteen minutes or so.

Along the way, we got hungry and were both excited to stop for lunch at a travel plaza. Explanation: one of our favorite food Instagrammers says that Italy’s travel plazas have excellent food, so we wanted to check it out. We both ordered a panini (his: meat and cheese. mine: spinach and cheese), and honestly, they were delicious. For dessert, we picked up a bag of Italian milk candies we’d heard about called Galatine (Dean’s verdict: “Like kissing someone after they’ve had a glass of milk.”)

We eventually arrived at our first stop just outside of Ostuni. Dean booked us a room at a hotel in the middle of an old olive farm. The hotel was arranged around a lovely courtyard and had bougainvillea climbing up the bright white walls. We arrived just in time for happy hour: wine, nuts, and the best taralli I’ve had in all of Italy (those small crunchy bread circles). Oh, and olives, of course. Then, while waiting for our dinner to start (which was to be served with an array of olive oils to accompany each dish), we watched an epic sunset over the fields of ancient, gnarled olive trees surrounding the hotel.

The next morning, on our way further south, we stopped in Ostuni’s city center, which is on a cliff overlooking the sea. The weather was quite stormy, which gave the frequently sun-drenched city a very different vibe than how the guidebooks described it. But we had fun bounding through the town, exploring back lanes and traipsing up and down worn staircases before heading on to Lecce.

Lecce: The Florence of the South

Dean wanted to try a Michelin-starred restaurant in Italy, so after much research, he decided on a place in Lecce called Primo. The head chef is a young woman in her 20s and the restaurant only has a few tables, clustered beneath a vaulted ceiling of Lecce stone. We sat at a little table in the corner and proceeded to have one of the most incredible meals of my life. And, truly, there is no one better to share a great meal with than Dean. Of everyone I know, he has the most appreciation for food. And wine. He savors each bite in a way that is delightful to watch, while simultaneously making me appreciate my own taste experience all the more. It was a several hour ordeal, by the end of which, we had become such good friends with our server, Emanuele, that we decided we would visit his family’s restaurant further up the coast. After dinner, we strolled through the old city again, now lit up with brilliant, dramatic lighting.

We spent the next day leisurely touring Lecce. We strolled through parks and past ancient ruins. Gazed up at a church ceiling completely covered with rich, dark wood and laced with gold accents. Ate cones of gelato. And watched the buildings of the city glow orange thanks to an especially vibrant sunset.

The next day, we packed up and began making our way back north. Along the way, we stopped at Emanuele’s cousins’ restaurant in Brindisi. It was on the water, surrounded by a harbor. And, it was a beautiful day, so we sat outside. When we introduced ourselves to the owners and told them why we were there, they welcomed us so warmly that it felt like we had immediately been adopted into their family. We let them decide what we should eat and soon our table filled with grouper carpaccio, octopus, shrimp crudo, rice balls over a delicious mustard sauce, mussels, and pasta with sea urchin.

We left so full that all I wanted to do was crawl into a cave to rest. And, as luck would have it, we were headed to our next stop…

Cave-Dwelling in Matera

Our visit to Matera did not start auspiciously. We had to park in a dark, claustrophobic parking garage and then were stuffed into the very back seat of a large van that wound its way through drab, forgettable streets. But then our van took a turn and headed down a steep embankment into the old town. It wasn’t until we peeled ourselves out of the back of the van and into the fresh air that I was able to take in the surroundings.

Matera is known for its multitude of caves carved into a series of steep hills and valleys. And people used to live in these caves! A few of the caves have since been turned into luxurious hotel rooms and we were going to spend the night in one of them. We got checked in (via the reception area, which, yes, was located in a cave), and then were led to our cave.

The door was solid, heavy, and unlocked via the kind of key that locks a pirate’s chest. We walked in and the room was partly illuminated by shafts of sunlight coming in from two small windows near the ceiling of the cave, and partly by dozens of thick white pillar candles. That were lit! (As in, you could leave these candles burning all the time because, like, it’s a cave.) There was a long wooden table, topped with fresh fruit and a pitcher of water. The sink was carved out of a huge, heavy rock. And the bathtub, located deep in a recess of the cave a few steps down from the main level, was shallow and sort of shaped like a graceful bean.

After a bit of fruit, we headed out for a stroll through the city, which was more like a hike because we had to climb and descend flights and flights of stairs. But we were rewarded with stunning, expansive views of different hills and valleys amongst clusters of twist-ey/wind-ey lanes that led to small pockets of the city sheltered from the main roads.

We stopped for aperitivo at a bustling little place overlooking a church with a rare façade—one decorated with skeletons. The charcuterie I ordered for us was accidentally huge, but delicious. We started to walk again, but by this point, it was getting cold. We came to a crossroads where we could turn right to return to our cave to get jackets, or turned left towards the setting sun. Unwilling to miss the spectacular sunset, we turned left. And, even as I write this, I feel a little chill of gratitude go through my body because I am so glad we went left. What happened next would be one of the highlights from my entire time in Italy.

So we walked towards the sun, soaking up the fading warmth on our skin. When the sun finally dipped below some buildings, we turned down a side lane. That led to a new view of the city that we hadn’t seen yet: a deep valley, completely covered with homes perched along the sloping sides. Some of the homes were vacant, decorated with graffiti. Some were immaculately kept. But they all appeared a bit purple from the light of dusk.

We began weaving our way deeper into the valley when I heard the faint sounds of a piano. I grew up with a piano, so I know the difference between a real piano and a recorded piano and this was most definitely a real piano. But the music was what was especially striking: it was haunting. The kind of music that reminds me that I don’t always have to be happy. There is beauty to be found in the darkness, provided that I allow myself to go there.

Because of the acoustics of the valley, it was hard to tell where it was coming from though. We both kept hearing it come from different directions and eventually split up to try to find it. Thankfully, Dean figured it out. It was coming from the top of the valley, albeit not where we had entered. So we climbed our way up to what was essentially a lookout point next to a piazza and found a small crowd gathered around a boy playing a full-sized standup piano, tucked away in an alcove of the lookout point. It was hard to tell what was going on exactly but I eventually figured out that there is a music conservatory in Matera and this boy, who was a student, was offering up his gift to everyone in the piazza that night. I stood there until he finished, completely transfixed. I felt like I couldn’t move. In a trip full of wonderful moments, I desperately didn’t want this one to end.

After that experience, the rest of the night was a bit of a daze. We ate dinner and then tucked into our cave for the night, reading by candlelight for a bit before going to bed.

The next morning, we woke early and had breakfast in an extremely tall cave that used to be a cathedral, and then went on a guided walking tour. Our tour guide was incredible and explained how the caves were created to take advantage of winter sunlight, while avoiding summer sunlight. As we were passing by a little shop, she told us about how bread makers use little wooden branding tools to indicate which loaves are theirs. This was super exciting to Dean (who knows a thing or two about bread. Check out @sourdough_and to see what I mean). We ducked into the shop and they said they were able to make a custom bread-brander for him on the spot. The family who ran the shop was incredibly sweet and it wound up being one of the highlights of the tour.

After we got back to our cave, we packed up and headed to Bari where we returned the car. But the trip wasn’t over. In four hours we would be in Rome! At least, that’s what we thought when we boarded our train…