San Giovani Rotunda is our base for exploring this part of northern Puglia & the especially the coastline of the Gargano National Park. This ordinary town is our home for the week. It lies on the edge of the vast, flat, sun-blasted plain of harvested wheat, in amongst the first lines of the olive regiments, at the bottom of a line of steep, rolling hills that necklace across the neck of this lump of hills & crags that has attached itself to the side of Italy, bulging out into the Adriatic.

The regiments of olive trees play host to thousands of cicadas. Whereas before, our days we were accompanied by a huge variety of calming bird song, here our insect pals set up a machinery of hard garating & grinding & heavy scratching on erratically patterned cheese graters to obliterate every other sound that might be considered attractive. Once up through the hills & out of the olive zone, the road winds & bends & roller-coasts through crags & rocks, tall pines & cedars, following the coastline around this lump of land & revealing glimpses of the so-turquoise sea through slight gaps in the tight vegetation.

Occasionally, haphazardly parked up cars on the side of the road are a clue to a rocky descent to an isolated cove or a pull-off provides a view point to a more organised private beach with the patterns of umbrellas occupying the sands.

Dotted around the coast of the Gargano NP is a necklace, bejewelled with ancient fishing ports & defensive forts. I’m giving you three here. All three have historical centres, usually facing out to sea, backed up by a modernised area of shops, cafés, bars & restaurants providing sustenance & entertainment. In June is spring season. So although all the tables are out and the smart boutiques are mostly open, the crowds have not arrived yet. There is no problem with parking, it is easy to get a table, & the streets are empty of foreign tourists. A great time to visit this attractive part of Puglia, where history & culture & weather all meet.

When in Ambruzzo we visited Vasto. The next largish, port town down the Adriatic coast is Termoli, in the Molise region. Full of memorabilia about WWII, this was an important, strategic objective in the Allied advance up Italy.

Peschici

Vieste