Goodbye Italy.
We have now left Italy and I wanted to write about Otranto, Lecce and Ostuni because these are some of Puglia's must-sees. I realise as I write that these places can also be seen nicely on our vlogs on YouTube that always come out on Fridays. But I want to explain a little more about Lecce here!
Lecce
Florence of the south, Athens of Puglia, city of the Baroque. As far as we're concerned, Lecce lives up to it all. Here I have seen the most beautiful cathedral of our trip. Baroque finished from head to toe, painted, including the ceiling. This one is definitely worth a visit, but also the other churches, the Roman theatre and the city gates. In addition, it is an atmospheric city. You can stroll through the streets and there are beautiful authentic shops. There are also plenty of nice terraces to choose from. Rudolf has had the tastiest sandwich so far on the terrace where we were sitting in the vlog of week 13,. We thought Lecce was a lovely city and it is definitely recommended to visit
Differences East-West Italy (south)
In an earlier blog I wrote about the way Italians drive. I have to nuance this a bit towards how they drive on the east side of the country. This starts with Rome, gets even worse at Naples and in Sicily it is just as terrible haha. In Puglia, on the other hand, they drive a lot neater and quieter. You can just use your flashing light again and wait for a roundabout without having to push your car in between. The roads are also a bit more passable. So there is clearly a difference.
Tip voor het tanken op de snelweg: als je gaat tanken kan je daarna vaak niet meer je auto (met caravan)/ camper parkeren. Dus ga eerst pauze houden en pas daarna tanken. Let meteen goed op dat je bij de zelf tank gaat staan, anders betaal je 20 cent extra per liter voor de tankservice door een bediende.
The waste along the roads is also a lot less in the west than the east. Man, man, man what a waste there is along the road and at the unmanned parking spaces. It is simply dumped where possible, a deserted road, a roadside cove, at a roundabout or at a parking lot. We have seen entire interiors including washing machines. However, on the east side this is a lot less.
The same goes for the fires that are fired everywhere. In the west you see them every now and then. Why discussion about Easter fires? On the west side we saw a few fikkies every day. Pruning waste from the olive trees, waste at the house, on oven fields, but also between the trees. Nitrogen discussion? It is that I cannot speak Italian, but my feeling doubts whether the discussion is taking place here as in the Netherlands.
Long live the Lidl (lidel)
Lidl is not that crazy yet. Each Lidl is organised in the same way. If you know where something is written, you can find the product you need with each Lidl (if any). In Sicily we also had the ARD that was cheap, but we have seen the Lidl is almost everywhere. Very very useful. What is not so convenient is that with the last Lidl I had to weigh the sandwiches myself / enter number of sandwiches and print the voucher. So that went wrong miserably. Just try to make it clear in Italian that you paid for 13 ciabatta sandwiches (because you accidentally entered 13) and there is only 1 in the bag. In the end it worked out, with a lot of hand and feet of work, and in the end it was my own fault of course.
Leaving Italy
We have now left Italy and are near Zagreb. When leaving, the Italians leave a good impression for a while. We had heard from fellow countrymen in Sicily how they were ‘finished’ to stop and money was drained for damage to the car for something they hadn't done. However, I did not expect this to happen in northern Italy. We drove away from Lido di Jesolo and on the way to the highway a large white Mercedes is signalling, making gestures that we have to follow. Up to three times he turns off his flashing light that we have to follow and turn off. We don't do this. Moments later it is a grey BMW signalling. This one also overtakes us, then drives on for a while, to return to the road a little later and just drive back. On the highway we stop to be on the safe side, to see if all the taillights are doing it, there is a window open. or something like that. Who knows, they might have been people with good intentions, unfortunately our feeling turned out to be right and there was nothing wrong with the caravan. We are very happy that we have not stopped.
This doesn't mean you shouldn't go to Italy! The above are of course the exceptions and if you are in the country for more than two months there is always something less. This can also happen in the Netherlands. It is a beautiful country, of which we have now been able to see a large part. We will definitely be back to see even more! For now, we are travelling further towards Greece via the Balkans. Just because of the relative cold, to warm Greece. On the way to new cultures and experiences.
Ciao Italia, ciao tutti from Zagreb Croatia.
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