Day 9: Brindisi

As we'd decided to go to Alberobello on Friday rather than Sunday, we still had Brindisi left to visit today. Our flight back to the UK isn't until 21.45 this evening, so we had plenty of time for a day trip. We had our final breakfast in the apartment this morning, and then the lady kindly offered to let us store our bags in her apartment for the day. This was really helpful and meant we didn't have to worry about the sometimes erratic opening hours of baggage storage facilities in Italy  We caught the 10.05 train from Bari Centrale, arriving in Brindisi a little over an hour later.

We didn't know a lot about Brindisi, except that it was a reasonably big port on the coast to the south of Bari, and that it has an airport which Ryanair fly to (but which never seems to have truly cheap flights). As we walked out of the train station and towards the centre of town, my first impressions based on this fountain was that it looked a bit like Podgorica!

A long avenue lined with palm trees led down towards the sea.

It didn't take us long to reach the port area, from where there are regular ferries to Greece and Albania.

As we walked along I caught sight of what looked like a Roman column poking out from between some houses.

We got a bit closer and confirmed that that was indeed what it was.

The column marks the end of the ancient Via Appia (Appian Way) which was an important Roman road, linking Rome and Brindisi.

We strolled along the seafront for a while, admiring the views.

This tall tower in the distance is a monument to the Italian sailors who died during the First World War.

In the distance at the end of the harbour we could see the Castello Svevo. This was built in the thirteenth century by Emperor Frederick II. Historically it was used as a prison, and then by the Italian navy. There appeared to be some sort of warship outside it today!

The sea promenade came to an end at this point, so we turned back inland. Inside the old town we found a couple of nice churches, though none as impressive as the ones we had seen in Lecce the day before.

This one is Brindisi's cathedral. Originally built in the twelfth century, it was mostly destroyed by an earthquake in 1743 and subsequently had to be completely rebuilt.

It was afternoon by this point and we were quite hungry, so we set off in search of somewhere to eat. Finding somewhere to eat isn't normally a problem in Italy, but Brindisi isn't a very touristy place and it seemed strangely devoid of restaurants. We walked almost all the way to the station and back and failed to find anything at all!

In the end we went into a bookshop, and Tim asked the helpful man behind the counter for advice on finding places to eat. He recommended that we go back down to the seafront and sure enough when we did, we found one place which was open and serving pizza  We sat with a lovely view of the sea while I had my final pizza of the holiday and Tim had a mixed grill.

By the time we had finished lunch, we thought that we had probably seen the main sights of Brindisi, but we still had a bit of time to kill before we had to be back in Bari to retrieve our suitcases and catch the train back to the airport. The Italy guidebook recommended a town called Ostuni as a good place to visit from Brindisi. This was about halfway on our journey back to Bari, so we decided to break our train trip there and see what there was to see.

It didn't turn out to be a very successful excursion! While Ostuni does have a railway station, unfortunately it is located what the guidebook referred to as a twenty minute walk from the actual town itself. What the guidebook failed to mention, however, is that the station is located in something akin to an industrial estate and that the road which leads from there to the town is designed for cars more than for pedestrians. We made an attempt at walking towards the town, but ultimately had to turn back.

We did get close enough to get a view of Ostuni from afar though, and it does look rather beautiful perched up on a big hill.  I think it would have been quite hard work (and more than 20 minutes!) to climb all the way up to the top of it though.

Having admitted defeat, we caught the train back to Bari, collected our suitcases and caught the train to the airport, where there turned out to be surprisingly good Wi-Fi, so I've been able to do a final blog

We've had a really great week in Italy and seen some amazing places. The weather this far south has been absolutely perfect for October; still hot enough to walk around in shorts and t-shirts, but not so hot that we really needed to make use of air-conditioning. I can't decide whether my favourites place was Pompeii, Procida or Alberobello; all were wonderful and unique in their own ways, and I think at some point we will definitely be visiting the south of Italy again