4/8/16 – 6/8/16

Following the coast from Santa Maria de Leuca northwards towards Taranto where we will be catching our train to Milano in northern Italy we passed the holiday coast of Puglia in high season…… very few foreign tourists apart from a few Swiss and Belgian  families but packed out with Italian families.

Our campsites in Gallipoli and Porta Pirrone were both extremely busy, but fortunately had plenty of camping spaces under the shade of pine trees….. however the ground was really hard requiring the use of gathered stones to hold our tent vaguely into shape….. luckily there was very little wind! Ants proved a problem though, and we discovered that they had nibbled lots of small holes in our footprint groundsheet and living area groundsheet!

The coastline was low lying with lots of long sandy beaches full of bathers and sun worshippers. The roads were busy with cars going to or from the beach. We saw quite a bit of creative parking as we peddled past.

Our stop at Gallipoli gave us the opportunity to explore this historic town.

We looked round the extensive   “Arroganaise” Castle and some interesting small museums telling about the production of lamp oil from pressed olives in underground workshops which had been carved out from the stone underneath the city to provide the constant temperatures required for the process. The introduction of petroleum oils in the mid 19th century put paid to what was a source of considerable wealth to Gallipoli….

Our last night under canvas was at Porta Pirrone, just 12km from Taranto…. we had planned to camp a bit further from Taranto but the campsite marked on the electronic map appeared not to exist….

We celebrated our last night camping by cooking our supper beside the sea which was just outside the campsite.