Day 56 - Another weather day in Gallipoli - 9 1/2 Weeks - Copenhagen to Lecce 2019

November 13, 2019

Day 56 - Another weather day in Gallipoli

Play It Again Sam

It wasn't a faithful reproduction of Groundhog Day, but it was pretty close. The wind was the same, much less rain and the sun tried to peak through from time to time. The town continued to play mind games with us though. Most business, and residences, are tucked away in courtyards behind nondescript wooden doors or metal shutters. Unless these are open you really don't have any idea they exist.

Yesterday evening we saw several businesses, restaurants, cafe's, B&B's, emerge from behind the doors. Looks good .. maybe more will come to life tomorrow we thought. And they did, but the ones that appeared yesterday disappeared like a shimmering chimera in the desert.

We are almost tempted to stick around here for a while longer and try to figure out the commercial logic of the businesses here. It must exist, because the businesses do, and they look like they've been around for far longer than we have ... but it's confounding to our simple minds.

Almost tempted, but the wind had died, the forecast is good and we are bugging out tomorrow morning to the tip of the heel (how's that for an oxymoron!).

We did manage to see a few of the sights in Gallipoli that were open ... the Santa Agata Cathedral (we were there yesterday but with the rain and cloud you could not see a thing inside it) and of course the waves that continued to pound the shore. We were joined by a good portion of the fisherman who otherwise would have been out catching our dinner.

Speaking of that, a 'new' restaurant quite close to us opened up tonight so we checked it out. La Vinaigrette ... French name in Italy ... that counts as 'ethnic' food around here ... but it was very Italian, very local (some of the fish were probably blown into the kitchen) and very good. We are really liking the rose wines made from the big juicy red varietals. Tonight was a Negroamaro / Malvasia Nero. We've only had this as a big, juicy 15% red ... but it works great as a lighter rose ... and a perfect foil for the local seafood. Wine 'pontification' over .. it was good.

Song of the Day, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful by Florence + Machine. That's what we are hoping for tomorrow.

Another 'fresh' day in Gallipoli. The rain is now gone from the forecast and the sun is starting to peak through but the winds are still up in the 40 -50 km/hr range.

looking across the causeway towards the 'new' town ... you can see the seaside road just behind the breakwater.

.... and now you can't! The sea has had 2 full days now of close to gale force winds and the rollers are still coming in with tremendous force

So we were doing what all the locals were doing too ... watching the waves

... not everything made it through the night though. Where all the gents from the previous picture were hanging out was across the street from the 'Fisherman's Hall'. I suspect that they may know whose boat this is

... more B&W to get a timeless feel for the shot. This could be 50 years ago as well as today

Saint Agata's cathedral was open, with some light! Quite dark fresco's and yesterday with the rain and cloud, none of this was visable

The Grumpini twins immortalized in stone

They sure impart a lot of drama in all of these religious paintings

Another quite morbid thing we've noticed in southern Italy is the preponderance of scenes of women getting their breasts cut off. Neither K or I can figure out any sense of meaning in this

... and one last 'flailing about' painting

Image not found :( — ...waiting for deliverance.

Unfortunately this little guy didn’t make it through the storm. When we came by him last night he was still above water

.... and here is the deliverance ... the wind has now died off, as forecast and tomorrow looks like good weather for a run south

So hopefully, our last sign off from Gallipoli. You may have noticed that our last three pics have been from the same place. Gallipoli’s an interesting place .... it’s not small, but this is the ONLY place we’ve found open for an ‘aperatif’

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