The old world charm of Monopoli, Puglia

I sometimes worry our guests won't see the appeal of Monopoli.  That they'll be critical, ask why it is so run down, and see only plaster crumbling off old walls, doors and shutters seemingly on their last legs and paint that hasn't had a recoat in decades.  If so, I'll tell them there's so much business done here senza fattura ("without an invoice" i.e. without being declared as income), that apparently it's common practice to do up the inside of your home but leave the outside as shabby as before so the tax man doesn't come knocking to ask where the money came from to pay for it all when last year's tax return says you earned so little!  Or perhaps I'd point out that this is an old fishing town in a traditionally poor part of the country in a recession so there isn't a whole lot of money around.  Or that the salty sea air and humidity just means nothing stays looking new for long (one look at the flaking paint on our home will attest to that!).  Whatever the explanation, our little town isn't what I'd call glitzy or glamorous (unlike its neighbour up the coast Polignano a Mare - there's a post all about it coming soon) and most of the buildings look rather "ready for gentrification" but still, these are real centuries-old stone homes in the sun-baked south of Italy: to us, all the above just add to the charm and we love it!

New piazza, dreamy old run-down building

I mean, you don't get this kind of art at the front door of a church in just any town!

Very avant garde for Monopoli!

Focussing on the positives, yesterday was a lovely day.  After a productive morning problem-solving for the house, Mr RR and I headed to the beach for a couple of hours.  For him, it's the perfect way to relax - for me, it's a real project trying to make sure every inch of my super-pale skin is covered in SPF 50 before being exposed!  However, once there, the weather was just right and the sea wonderful.

Never tire of looking at the clear turquoise sea!

Later, we went for a passeggiata ("evening stroll") round the centro storico ("old town") where we live.  Being on the east coast, we don't get the dramatic sunsets over the sea like other parts of Italy, but the colours of the sky were beautiful.  Of course, my iphone can't do it justice but you get an idea.

Il Castello di Carlo V looks out to sea

Characterful archway leads to the port

P.S. Today comprised more house stuff followed by the beach.  Being Saturday and another perfect day for weather, there were lots of yachts and sailboats out - seems there is a bit of money around after all! 

(Not such a) very English barbq?!

Well that was dramatic!

Yesterday evening we held a little party to show off the house and say thank you to those who have played important roles in getting us to this point.  My parents and Mr RR's parents were there, the architect and engineer (lovely married couple who we now consider our friends), Italian friends we have known for 5 years now who hosted me, translated for me, stood up for me in meetings with the builder and so much more, plus the most wonderfully smiley elderly couple I have ever met who live just across from us and have been unfailingly friendly and welcoming whenever we see them.  It was quite a mix but Monopoli is a small town and most of the Italians seemed to know each other or have friends in common.

Anyway, I had been cooking on and off for 2 days (for the record, mum and I had made a quiche, onion and blue cheese tarts, coronation chicken, curried prawn and melon salad, burgers, thai rice salad, garlic bread, caramelised onions, plus banoffee pie, white chocolate and ginger cheesecake, and cupcakes in lemon and chocolate!  Excessive maybe but I wanted to show there was a whole world of food out there that didn't revolve around pasta, tomatoes and olive oil!).  I'd been keeping an eye on the weather forecast, as there had been showers on and off for a few days, but as of Sunday afternoon it was still 0% chance of rain after 12 noon on Monday (yesterday), so nothing to worry about, right?!

Wrong!

As we welcomed in our last guests, the rain started coming down, heavier than I've ever seen it here before.  A river of water started pouring under the external door to the balcony into Mr RR's office - first lesson learned: closed doors with open shutters won't always stop the rain!  Towels hastily thrown down, I went to the kitchen where my mum suggested that I didn't look outside at the roof terrace!  The swing seat and parasol, put up just 3 days before and so admired, had been caught by the wind in the first minute of torrential rain and broken!  The parasol was only stopped from going over the side of our 4-storey building by catching on the TV aerial support and my dad's valiant efforts to keep it on the ground (like any umbrella in a storm but 10 times the size!!) - second lesson learned: shut the parasol before the storm comes rather than thinking you'll have time when/if it starts!  All that plus the doors to the terrace had stayed open while Mr RR and our dads tried to get the situation under control so there was water everywhere on the top floor - third lesson learned: buy a mop!

So, 3 day old fancy terrace furniture destroyed, every towel in the house on the floor soaking up rainwater, nowhere to sit and eat except on the rain-soaked terrace and I have a house full of hungry guests!  Che dramma!  (What drama!)

On the plus side, we seem to choose our friends well and everyone made the best of it, congregating in the kitchen, the women in their 70's perched on the stairs, all appreciating my joke that it couldn't be an English barbq without rain and chatting away while I came up with a plan B (serve food in the kitchen then head back up to the terrace to eat as the heat dries everything pretty quickly) and it all worked out in the end.  One guest even emailed me today and said nonostante il brutto tempo, ieri sera è stata proprio una magnifica serata (despite the weather, yesterday was just a wonderful evening).  Aw!

We heard later from a friend who had been driving towards the area in the storm that it looked like a twister!  What on earth?!  Well, it's always good to have stories and it's certainly the first party I've attended, let alone hosted, with a tornado thrown in, so a pretty memorable house-warming for all!

P.S. Also, how fortunate are we?  Showing just what incredible friends they are, we received these absolutely spot-on gifts:

Beautiful white fruit bowl for our predominantly white
(and lacking a fruit bowl!) home

Beautiful white lantern for our predominately white
(and always loving more candles!) home

Incredible you-can't-call-that-a-plant-it's-a-tree
from our lovely neighbours which is literally as tall as me
but which they insist is just a small token and a typical house-warming gift!

When in Rome...

2 weekends ago was nothing but finishing touches ahead of our first guests - tidying away boxes, putting up shelves and mirrors, making beds and so on, so a few days in Rome last week with Mr RR's family ahead of their visit to Puglia was a lovely break.

Seemingly we picked the hottest week of the last 10 years to visit so probably looked a bit more hot and bothered as we walked round the city at a snail's pace than we would have chosen, but still we saw
the Pantheon...

... the Sistine Chapel and Colosseum,

... and even caught the Pope's address at St Peter's, so we're feeling suitably blessed now!

Honestly though, I'm more of a town girl than a city girl, so it was a delight to come back to our own home in little Monopoli and go to sleep to silence as opposed to the never-ending honking horns and sirens of Rome, not to mention the cooling sea breeze.

But there were some sights other than the architecture that warranted a cheeky picture, as you just don't see the like in our little town or perhaps, anywhere else in the world!

Kid size loo in the mother and baby room!

Priest pin up calendar!

Biggest thistles ever!

Rainbow pasta

Words that make this ragazza very happy!

Still counts as 3 of my 5 a day, right?!

Lilac aubergine?

Pink beans?  

Novelty Italy-shaped bottles of limoncello

All the tourist T-Shirts you could wish for!

Stylish shop displays

Stylish shoe displays

BDSM advert: "Recession? Tonight let's stay in..."!

Authentic gladiator smoking a fag!

Oh dear! Think I'll be hearing about this for a few days!

It's summer and we're opening our doors!

I'm so looking forward to welcoming our first guests to Il Palazzotto.  My and Mr RR's parents are the trail blazers coming out next week and some good friends will be with us a few weeks after that. 

Looks like they will just beat the rush: check out which unassuming town is featured in the current issue of super-fancy Conde Nast Traveller magazine!

Fancy hotel in centro storico, MONOPOLI!

A taste of Capri and St Tropez in the 1950's but for a smidgeon of the price

Incase anyone needed any more convincing:

Sun sun sun!

Check back soon for more good reasons to book a break in our wonderful little Monopoli!

Settling in

It's important to me to feel part of a community.  While I know we'll never be locals, I don't want to forever feel like foreign outsiders here.  We're obviously not there yet by a long stretch, but I want to share a few little stories with you that I think show we're on the right track.

Firstly, as a pale blonde girl and chinese guy, we're a distinctive couple most places but especially here in Puglia, so it's no surpise that we're remembered when we return to our favourite restaurants.  Most recently though, when the menu had been slightly changed, the waitress knew what I was looking for before I'd even said the item and showed me where it was now listed, so she knew our regular order, which makes me smile - we have a "usual"!  In another restaurant we frequent quite often, the young (female!) owner recently called me cara (dear) which is a term of affection some of my Italian friends I've known for years haven't used yet!

Secondly, when driving through a toll booth somewhere in Italy last week, I asked the man for il scontrino, per piacere (the receipt please), and with a smile his Italian response roughly translated to "A polite English woman: it can't be true!".  I find it hard to imagine that we as a nation have a reputation for being rude, or that every previous Brit he has encountered has shouted at him or refused to pay his toll, so could it be my use of per piacere (which is the normal phrase for please in our part of Puglia as opposed to the more usual per favore,) that made the old man smile?  Not sure if it counts as settling in, but I was happy my Italian got such a positive response!

Thirdly, today, I managed to explain and ask for primer in a DIY shop, having not been able to find the word for it in my handy translator, and then, when I wasn't too clear what the instructions on the back said, made my attempt at a joke Devo imperare fai da te e italiano! (I have to learn DIY and Italian!), and the old boy behind the till actually laughed and understood, saying that both were important, so that was a first too!  (Hey, I never claimed to be a comedian!)

I'm learning other things that are new here too.  Like the electricity!  Strange I know, but there is a limit on the supply you have here, and it is far lower than we are used to in UK.  I was aware of this from expat forums (endless stories of Brits throwing their kettles away after a week here as they always tripped the fuses, or learning not to put the oven on until the washing machine had finished its cycle!), and knowing how frustrated Mr RR and I would be if we couldn't continue our lives more or less as normal, I paid extra to have our supply double the norm and we haven't had any trouble with it.  Until last night!  I'm downstairs, in the living room, pot of bolognese sauce simmering upstairs in the kitchen with the extractor fan on, when BANG! the lights go out.  There are fuse boards on each of 3 of the 4 floors for this very reason, but I'm still getting familiar with what is where, so off I go up and down our steep stairs in the dark checking for tripped fuses!  It's then that I am so grateful for these little guys:

Just innocently waiting: ever-ready....

... to be a hero when emergency strikes!

The architect suggested having one per stairway as a precaution and I am so glad we did!  They charge off the usual supply day by day and, when the electricity goes off, automatically switch to battery power and become torches you can pull out of their socket on the wall to light your way.  Genius!

But seriously, the hob is gas and I had 2 lights on in the whole house so our extractor fan on max power was enough to trip the fuses at double the normal supply?  I can't wait to try and cook in summer when we have the air conditioners on sucking all the power!  Mamma mia!

P.S. Morning after posting this and the best workman I've found out here for reliability, value and super high quality of work has turned up to finish off the kitchens in the apartments and greeted me with 2 kisses, something I don't get from anyone else but my friends.  Not sure what it means but I really want him to come back and help me with so many bits and pieces, so it's good news!  Here's to settling in!

Road trip - again!

I'm sorry it's been so long since I last posted.  It's been a busy time without much to share, except perhaps for our road trip from Puglia to UK and back - no less than 2600 miles (and that's not counting the miles driven in error!).   Why you ask?  Mainly, to get the MOT sorted for another year, and, seeing as we were making the trip, to transport back all sorts of things we have found difficult to buy in Puglia: for the house, wooden shelves, memory foam mattress toppers and decent paint, and for me, dilutable squash, lime and lemon curd and a few month's supply of decent chocolate!

Car full to the brim!

Notable stories from our outward journey to UK include us having driven 12 hours and being just 5 minutes from our halfway resting point of a hotel in Lucerne, when we were the second car behind a toppled trailer which had spilled 4 panicked cows onto the motorway!

Cow chaos!

Being the second car meant we had options: it was a 3 lane road, so we could have driven round the first car which slowed, ignoring the farmer's request to stop, and headed on to our destination.  We didn't, as we could see one of the cows had made a run for it and didn't think that leading a procession of cars down into a tunnel with a loose cow was the responsible option!  We may have chosen differently had we realised it would take quite so long to resolve the situation!

Return of the runaway cow

Heart sinks: cordon = not going anywhere for a while!

Strike a pose!

So near and yet so far!

So we waited and waited as the emergency services came, cordoned off the road, drew over the skid marks on the road with chalk, took lots of photos, brought in a new trailer, ushered the cows on board and then eventually let us head on our way.  I felt grateful at least that, being the second car, we had front row seats to the spectacle, which was not the case for all the long queues of cars behind us!

Our next hold up was at the end of the next day at the Eurotunnel: 5 hours' wait following a train that had broken down in the tunnel earlier that day!

At least the sunset while we waited was pretty!

Our way back with the car to Puglia was slightly less eventful, although, I do want to have a little rant about our hotel at our halfway point, this time in Lugano.  Mr RR had accumulated enough points on business trips to earn us a free night, so we got an upgraded room and after a long day and a nice meal out, headed to bed about 11.  About 10 past 11, a light just off the bedroom in front of the main door switched on for a minute then off again.  Weird we thought.  10 minutes later it happened again.  So I got up and looked for a light switch that controlled the light.  Couldn't find it.  I took the key card out of its holder, thereby deactivating all the electricity.  Light stayed on.  At this point, Mr RR is sound asleep and the idea of phoning reception and requesting a new room held zero appeal, so I switched the bathroom light on, thinking at least this way the room would be in semi-darkness all night as opposed to alternating between pitch black to lights on every 10 minutes, and tried to get some sleep.

Come the morning, I was incredulous to hear the lady at reception explain to Mr RR that she knew about the light: that it was on a sensor as some people like it if they have to get up in the night and that we should have phoned reception to get someone to come and deactivate it if we didn't like it!  Short on sleep and frustrated that no-one thought to mention the quirky lighting set up when we checked in (we have both travelled a lot - this is not normal even in the fanciest hotels!), we firmly explained it couldn't have been operating on a sensor when we were both nowhere near it but in bed, but still no apology came.  Nul points Lugano Holiday Inn!

Still despite all these hiccups, (the less said about the 2 hours heading the wrong way out of Calais the better!) we were on the whole, even-tempered throughout and when you're stuck in a car with your nearest and dearest for 4 days, that and a safe arrival are perhaps all that matters!

Thankfully the only Asse on our trip - boom boom!

P.S. There's always something new when you head out of your usual environment.  This time round it was this little beauty found in our Lucerne hotel buffet.  Think chocolate spread but with a hint of malt and crunched up maltesers mixed in.  I must confess I smuggled a few out in my handbag!!

Ovomaltine - ohsogood!