After a wonderfully long and restful sleep in my alcove, I awoke to find sunshine illuminating the stone apartment. A lazy morning included some of the best juice I've ever had (it seems the Italians do everything better, including breakfast juice, Arancia Rossa...mmmm) and laughing at the awful DVD of Angels & Demons. (The apartment came with a great film collection which we worked our way through during the stay.)
My favourite bit of Angels & Demons came from the really obvious dumbing down for the American audience. At one point, an Italian in the film says to Tom Hanks,
"we see you, as, how you say... [with thick Italian accent]... formidable,"
Tom Hanks: "you see me as... formidable?"
Brilliant.
During the film, I get things out for breakfast, including something The Blonde picked up, thinking it was butter. Little packages of something labelled as being useful for panne & pasta - we naturally concluded it was butter.
The Blonde: "Give that butter a squidge love, it will have gone hard in the fridge."
I dutifully squidged the packet then opened it. It was clear that this was not butter, but some grainy, beige yeasty substance for baking bread and cakes.
"Um, Blonde, I think this isn't butter...."
"No, I think it's yeast...." [gag]
Well done us. We hastily learn the Italian for butter for next time we go shopping.
We decide to take advantage of the lack of rain and have a wander round the delightful little city with it's grand but crumbling buildings and marble squares. The Blonde gets beeped at by over-zealous Italian men on a constant basis. By the end of the holiday, it's starting to grate.
Out of season Ostuni is a very quiet place. There's literally no one around and very little open during the afternoons. We managed to locate the internet cafe recommended by the apartment owners and try and get drinks and lunch, Gran Caffe Tito Schipa, run by two friendly Italian sisters Rosa and Annamaria.
It's strange inside - half gelataria, half the living and dining rooms of an old-fashioned Italian house. We ask Rosa if we can have some drinks on the terrace outside (she pours extremely strong G&Ts!) and enquire about lunch - she says in broken English,
"No restaurant, we are cafe - I make sandwich?" We agree that this would be fine, but then after she's run some enquiries with her sister, she announces we can have tortellini - perfect.
The terrace at the back of the cafe overlooks the whole city, down to the valley where a huge white church dominates the background of deep green olive groves, and up to the hill where the Cattedralle sits. One thing that will always remind me now of Ostuni is the smell of wood-burning stoves - the city smelled like bonfires the whole time, and we had a very pleasant break with the intoxicating smell of wood and the sunshine twinkling over the magnificent view.
Soon Rosa comes out and presents us with amazing homecooked tortellini in a creamy sauce with prosciutto, and local white wine which was a straw yellow and tasted more like vermouth. Benissimo!
On the way back to L'Alcova, The Blonde is accosted from across the square by a man who knew Christiano and Augusto the night before. He was also called Angelo. I think most people on Ostuni are called Angelo. We bid a hasty retreat up the hill back to the apartment.
Back in the apartment, I was disproportionately happy to find that the well stocked kitchen included a cat-shaped icecube tray. The Blonde was happy because she had a free hairclip in her packet of Italian kids' crisps. Simple pleasures.
Quote of the day was The Blonde topping her "I love clouds" comment the day before, with apropos of nothing, announcing that she "loved meat" while we enjoyed some more antipasti later that day.
We spent another fun evening in Il Gatto Rosso (we didn't really explore the range of restaurants in Ostuni, we decided to make this one our local as the menu was broad and really inexpensive, and with two euro for a glass of Prosecco, we didn't need to go anywhere else.)
I had a lasagne which I am not sure was completely authentic but still, it was tasty. We were alos delighted by the dolce which was a frozen ball of vanilla ice cream covered in little bits of crisp sugar, with strong coffee ice cream in the middle. Amazing.
We then enjoyed the absolutely brilliant British drama State of Play - possibly one of the best series I've ever seen, and an early night for some more glorious, switched off sleeping.
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