Ciao from Southern Italy. This picture is of the trullo we are staying in for a week, near the town of Cisternino (think of the heel in the boot shape of Italy, that’s where we are.) Our trullo is super cute and has amazing grounds and a lovely pool.
Yesterday we wandered around Cisternino which is a lovely white washed hilltop town with lots of little alleyways and nooks and crannies.
We had a great Sunday lunch at La Piazzetta del Borg restaurant full of other families.
Little gourmet waiting for his lunch
For lunch I had ‘Orecchiette con cime di rape e pane fritto dei poveri’. A traditional Puglian dish, it translates to ‘little ears pasta with swedes’ flowers and fried bread’. It also has anchovies and chilli in it. YUM!
We figured out there was something going on that night, so we had a big afternoon snooze then came back into town that night to a giant party going on! The town was celebrating the day of ‘Maria SS Ausiliatrice’, so there was a giant procession through the town of the statue of Mary, surrounded by amazing flowers, singing, a brass band and the town was lit up with thousands of lights and a huge fireworks display at the end of it. It was quite special and the kids were awestruck. It has provoked religious fervour in Sophie (the seed was sown at St Peters in Rome) who is now obsessed with Mary, God and Jesus and I have recited the Christmas story at least 10 times in the last day ha ha.
Crowds gathering for the parade
Today was market day so we stocked up on amazing fruit and vegetables, salami, buffalo mozzarella, pecorino cheese and we have been living off strawberries and cherries today.
Beautiful market fresh strawberries
Amazing fresh produce
Sophie bought a blinging pink bracelet for 1 euro and Jack chose a Winnie the Pooh ball. The afternoon was spent by the pool and playing with the cat and little kittens at the house (Henry and Bouby cats you are long forgotten!)
The people are very nice and everybody loves the kids, so many people come up to them ‘ciao bella’ to Sophie and kisses and hugs – she is lapping it up, Jack quite shy and wary! He loves cruising around in the backpack and lots of people look at it with amusement. One old nonna came up to us at the market today and gave us a blast in rapid Italian, pretty much implying Sophie was cold and we should wrap her up, it was about 20 degrees but the locals are still rugged up!
We plan to spend the next few days pottering around the surrounding villages and some more pool time.
Mimma, who is the owner of our trullo made us an amazing tart for breakfast. The kids cannot believe that you are allowed to eat cake for breakfast in Italy!
