Buongiorno, readers

Mrs. Werbenmanjensen and I just got home from a week in Puglia, staying outside Brindisi and driving to Alberobello, Gallipoli, Lecce, Bari, and Taranto. We know nothing more than you about a hijacked Turkish jet that landed in Brinidisi while we were there, although a news crew appeared to be staying in our hotel.

Some themes:

1. We never had a bad meal. We never had a meal that even approached mediocre. Some were even award-winning. And one was very strange.




2. Italian driving and parking live up to their reputations.





3. Italian lunch hours exceeded their reputations. Everything except restaurants closed at around 1, sometimes 12:30, sometimes 12:15, or whenever they felt like it, and reopened sometimes around 3, or 3:30, or 4, or 4:30, or whenever they felt like it. Maybe they didn't reopen at all.




4. The magical streets of Italy's old cities appear to not have changed in centuries: Cobbled passageways opening onto grand piazzas overlooked by cathedrals, the silence during the abovementioned lunch hours punctuated only by the clank of tableware echoing from dozens of curtained windows.




5. Every town has at least one, and sometimes several, grand basilicas and churches that would be the envy of any U.S. archdiocese.
6. The humble primitivo grape went to America and became Zinfandel, but I prefer the primitivo of Puglia. Maybe it's the soil, maybe it's the climate--or maybe it's what medical researchers call "the placebo effect." In any case, the sommelier at Alberobello's award-winning restaurant told another party that primitivo is Puglia's finest.





7. While the antiquities are everywhere, the upkeep was somewhat disappointing. It seems wrong to see 17-year-old graffiti on the grounds of a Roman site.




8. In a similar vein, the Italians have plenty of castles but don't seem to realize that they can charge 23 Euros for people to set foot inside of them and nobody would think twice, and perhaps contribute to the upkeep of said castles. The castles we could enter would charge us a Euro and let see inside a chapel or a courtyard, but everything else was off-limits. Many seemed to still be used as military bases.








9. Stray dogs, and their leavings, and cats everywhere. Sometimes in the courtyard of our hotel, barking at 3 a.m.









10. The beaches of Puglia look inviting. It makes me want to return during the summer. It was still warm, and the water wasn't too cold to swim (we did spend a couple hours on a beach) but the resorts were all closed and what remained was not the highest quality beach.

Anyway, we have much to post. Expect more soon.