To Minervino Murge

April 25, 2023

Just like when we left Massafra to meet with Racpat two days ago, we’re leaving Gravina this morning under pressure from a time commitment. Today is Liberation Day, the Italian national holiday commemorating the victory of the Italian resistance movement against Nazi Germany and the Italian Social Republic. This is relevant to us today because restaurants will be on holiday hours, and especially in smaller towns such as Minervino Murge where we’re heading today it could be hard to find a place to eat.

By chance this occurred to us yesterday while there was still time to make a plan, so we contacted our upcoming host to see if she knew of any restaurants that would be open. She said that all the local restaurants would be closed for dinner but if we wanted she could fix a home-cooked meal; or else she offered to make a lunch reservation for us at Casa Scesciola, which was offering a fixed-price holiday menu. After thinking it through and reading reviews, we opted for Casa Scesciola and asked her to make a reservation for us for 2 PM.

It’s a fairly easy 30 mile ride to Minervino Murge, but to allow room for holdups we decided to leave by 10. The first holdup comes immediately - it’s us and our slow-paced departure preparations. It’s 10:30 by the time we’re finally rolling - slowly, as we push our bikes up the steep cobblestone street for the first four blocks. So we’re not even out of town yet and we’re already worried about being late for our meal.

Leaving Gravina, and going the right direction. The road is backed up with folks streaming in for the last day of the festival.

Under the circumstances I’m charged by Rocky with keeping the camera stashed away and staying on task, which I mostly do. For the next thirty miles I stop only for essential shots as we virtually bike straight through, arriving at the outskirts of little Minervino Murge at 1:30 - plenty of time to make it to Casa Scesciola by 2:00.

It’s a beautiful ride though as we bike through the broad, open croplands that parallel the boundary of Alta Murgia National Park, so there’s more than one or two essential stops to slow us down. Still, stopping for only eleven photos in a landscape as stunning as this is showing exceptional constraint on my part.

Heading northwest on SP230. We’ll be on this road nearly the whole way to Minervino.

And the view north into the national park. We’ll follow this ridge for about twenty miles before finally nearing its end and cutting north through a low gap. We’re looking here at the Calderon station on an abandoned rail line.

Looking west we start getting views of Monte Vulture, the extinct volcano near Melfi.

Dropping down from the high point of the trip. Looking ahead, we see the end of the range.

The canola fields are brilliant as we bend north toward Minervino.

Looks like a good cover shot. Must be about time to update it.

Another abandoned station, near Pantone.

Video sound track: I Gotta Feelin’, by the Dallas String Quartet

It’s a good thing Rachael kept me on task as well as she did, because we need all the time we’ve got. As small as Minervino is, it still takes all of the half hour we’ve got ft us to find our restaurant. The town’s one big maze on a steep sided hill, and the phone and Garmins both have trouble with navigation. And once we finally do find the restaurant, we still can’t find it because it’s buried in the maze up a side alley accessible only by stairs. No fun with loaded bikes, especially when we’re anxious about time.

Finally we find and arrive at the restaurant, after climbing the stairs to it - it’s not on the street, so you have to wander through a maze of lanes and alleys to reach it. Especially fun with loaded bikes.

It’s exactly 2:00 when I enter the front door, while Rachael’s still back getting things out of the bikes that we’re just leaving unlocked against a wall. when I introduce myself to the woman who greets me, her face immediately darkens. In broken English she gradually gets across that we’re too late and there’s no table for us. I’m crushed, and start thinking about how I’m going to break this to Rachael and wondering if there’s any place else we might get fed when she says to wait while she makes a call. A minute later she gets across that they’ll feed us after all, and takes us to an outdoor table at the end of the alley that’s been set for two and is just waiting for us.

Later we’ll learn that the fact that there was a misunderstanding with our host, and no arrival time was actually set. The restaurant had already called our B&B to ask about us and let them know they were no longer holding the table. We were really lucky they seated us, and they started serving us immediately - water and wine were served within minutes of our being seated, and appetizers started showing up seconds later. I think they were rushing through the earliest courses of a many staged meal to try to get us caught up.

Thinking back, Rachael and I don’t think either of us has ever had an experience like this, where we didn’t know what was on the menu and new courses just kept coming, and coming, and coming. An amazing meal, an experience we won’t forget. Even being rushed through the appetizer courses we were there over two hours, waddled our thoroughly sated, and lugged our bikes back up the stairs before coasting a mile and a half down to our B&B.