Wednesday April 2
We arrived on Wednesday around noon after a very smooth checkout and drive from Lucera. The landscape became noticeably prettier as we got further south, with rolling hills of olive groves and cypress trees. Our hotel (Hotel Pineta) is fantastic - a largeish, modern hotel with stylish decoration, underground secure parking and a good restaurant. Our room has a lovely view of olive groves and the beautiful pool (too cold for swimming!). Its normal price is out of our range but I got a great deal on Hotels.com.
Our view!
Our lovely room (not seen here: huge wall mounted flat-panel TV!)
Our bathroom - complete with rain shower (left) and bidet - all Italian hotels come with a bidet.
After checking in we headed out to explore Ruvo and its cathedral. It was siesta time (big in southern Italy, from about noon to 2:30 everyday) so the town was virtually empty and very peaceful. Ruvo is a very lovely little town, with picturesque winding alleys, iron-railed balconies and colorful shutters on white stone houses. The roads are paved with marble slabs and our shoes squeaked the entire time.
Sleeping dogs have been a common sight in Puglia - at first we worried they were dead, but they are all breathing. They rarely move, though - apparently they take the siesta seriously, too!
This cute one was one of the few to wake up when we came by.
I don't know much about Ruvo's cathedral except that it was built in the 1100s in the Puglian Romanesque style. It's very lovely and has a good rose window (with some plant life), nice facade sculptures, and a large separate bell tower. Unfortunately it was locked so we didn't see the inside.
Back at the hotel, David found a good use for the cold pool - soaking his weary feet! We had a nice time hanging out poolside in the sun for awhile.
Thursday April 3
Yesterday went rather less well. We woke up to pouring rain, which continued the entire day. This came as a bit of a shock since we'd already started to take the warm and sunny weather down here for granted! Plus we are mainly here for cathedral facades and we can't take pictures in the pouring rain (wet cameras are unhappy cameras). So, very disappointing.
But fortunately we're here long enough that we can still fit everything into subsequent days, so we settled in our lovely hotel room getting caught up on various tasks (mostly photo processing) and watching CNN. Overall, it was a good and productive day, and we enjoyed another nice dinner in the hotel restaurant.
Today April 4
Today it is still pouring down rain. Boo! So I've spent the morning getting caught up on online stuff such as this blog and we will probably go visit a nearby cathedral later this afternoon despite the weather. The weekend is forecasted to be mostly sunny, thankfully - it will be a busy couple of days!
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