Michelle's Travel Adventures

Wednesday, May 28

We’re headed to Ostuni today and we’re very excited not only to explore “La Città Bianca” but Stephen’s cousin Monique and her partner Mark have flown in from London for a quick visit with us in Ostuni!

Ostuni is a beautiful, ancient hilltop town that overlooks the Adriatic Sea and the verdant olive groves of the Valley d’Itrea.  It has dazzling whitewashed buildings built along the hillside that create a maze of  narrow winding streets, arches and lookouts with breathtaking views of the sea and surrounding valley.

We arrived in Ostuni around noon time and once we parked the car we decided to head to the “centro storico” aka the historic centre at the top of the hill. 

By the time we reached the top of the hill, we’ve worked up enough of an appetite to stop for lunch. We got a table outside on the beautiful terrace at Taverna Della Gelosia. 

I ordered the “Parmigiana Our Way” ~ and it was one of THE BEST eggplant parmigiana I’ve ever tasted.  It was covered in the basil parmigiano foam…omg!!!! So delicious!  Macy ordered “The Apulian” , a burrata with basil pesto and candied cherry tomatoes topped with housemade tomato crackers.  Makena ordered “Memory of a Cesar”, a slow cooked chicken thigh with a grilled caesar salad.  Stephen ordered “La Bombetta XXL”, a black pork stuffed with bacon and pork belly served with pork popcorn.  Everything was delicious, the setting was beautiful and the service was efficient.

After lunch we wandered the narrow streets and checked out some very cool vintage shops. 

Ostuni also has a lot of beautiful doors in quiet streets and alleyways so we took lots of silly door pics. Fear not, we did not get in anyones way, there was not a soul around us while we did our goofy little doorway photoshoot.

We also visited the 15th century Cathedral at the top of the hill.

We took some time midafternoon to just sit on a bench and people watch.  And also how beautiful is this bench?!

We wanted to go to Borgo Antico Bistro for an afternoon drink, but it wasn’t open yet, so we went next door instead.  Borgo Antico Bistro has become instagram famous for its scenic views and watching the sunset.  If you’re looking for an Italian outdoor bistro vibe, it’s got it in spades.

But we still enjoyed our cocktails on the outdoor terrace next door.

Next we head to Monique and Mark’s hotel, Paragon 700 – a 17th century palazzo converted into a boutique hotel and spa, for pre-dinner drinks with them.  Their hotel is very cool and it has a very hip bar with a large outdoor space, which is where we decide to have our drinks.  Note to self: book the same hotel that Monique does, she has a skill for finding THE BEST places!

Unfortunately Monique was not feeling well and not feeling up to dinner so we had a nice catch up with her and then we left for our dinner reservation.

Dinner tonight is at La Vecchia Terrazza. 

It started off on the wrong foot, as they didn’t have our reservation in their system.  I had made it online and they said they were having issues with their online system.  However, they were able to find us a table without much of a wait.  We picked this restaurant because of the terrace and its views.  It was also described online as a family run restaurant which is normally a win for me.  One thing I really disliked is that they have rule that you have to order more than one course per person.  And that’s not how we like to order…but anyways…

For my appetizer I ordered the Capocollo di Martina Franca – a plate of sliced pork neck from Martina Franca, sliced cheese, pistachio, honey and thyme.  We could only eat a few bites.  It’s a lot of cured meat for one person.  And our waiter seemed insulted that we couldn’t eat more.  We literally would not have each ordered a plate if he hadn’t told us we had to order more than one dish.

For my main I ordered the Tagliatelle con salsiccia di cinghiale – a pasta with wild boar sausage.  (Unfortunately either something I ate here did not agree with me, or I had food poisoning, because I was sick in the “must have a toilet pronto kind of way” for 3 days after.). It was not our best dining experience.

After dinner we called it a night and drove back to our Trullo in the countryside.

Thursday May 29

We spent the morning puttering around the trullo, gathering up our stuff and starting the packing up process. We head back to Bari tomorrow and wanted to get organized for tomorrow’s departure. We also spent some time hanging out by the pool, doing some reading and relaxing.

This afternoon we are meeting Monique and Mark at L’Essenza di Puglia for a wine and olive oil tasting. The tasting is located on a farm in Carovigno, just outside of Ostuni When we arrive we’re met by Giancarlo and his wife Valentina who run the estate, which has now been part of Valentina’s family for 4 generations. We have a guided walk around the vineyard and ancient olive tees while we listen to Giancarlo tell us the history of the land and the wines that he grows. And then we head to the tasting room.

Our guided tasting includes five wines: white, rosé, sparkling (blanc de noir), and two reds – Negroamaro and Primitivo.

And each wine was paired with a selection of five naturally infused olive oils, thoughtfully curated to enhance and complement the wine profiles. The tasting was also accompanied by traditional Pugliese frisa bread. This is the first time any of us did an olive oil tasting, and I was surprised at how well the olive oils paired with each of the wines.

After our tasting we cabbed it back to Ostuni for drinks and dinner at the Paragon 700 hotel with Monique and Mark. We had a wonderful time catching up with our London fam here in Ostuni.

Unfortunately the kitchen was closed this evening so after some sad goodbyes and hugs, the four of us left for a nearby restaurant that had incredible pizzas and then we headed back to our Trullo for our last night.

Friday, May 30

We’re all packed up this morning and as we’re loading the car with our bags the cleaners are just arriving. We’ve calculated our departure time to sync up perfectly with our rental car drop off time at the Bari airport. We get about 20 minutes into our drive back to Bari when I get a WhatsApp call, apparently Stephen forgot to leave the house keys on the table and they were still in his pocket!! One thing I forgot to mention is that Makena gets extremely car sick, and the winding country roads that we commute on a daily basis here have been a struggle. So seeing that Makena was already nauseous and we had to turn around and drive another 25 minutes to drop off the keys and turn around again. And we’re now going to be late dropping off our rental car. He thought Makena and I should sit by the road for the 50 minutes it would take to go there and back. Lol after a lot of debating it was 3 against 1 and we decided to all stay in the car. lol

While we were driving back to Bari, I was on the Air Canada app checking us into our flights tomorrow. I successfully checked myself and Stephen in, however I couldn’t get either of the girls checked in for some strange reason. I was chat messaging both Air Canada and Air Dolomiti but both were saying it was the other airlines issue. So I thought, ok let’s not stress about it now, let’s drop the car off at the airport and go to the check in counter at the airport for help.

When we arrive in Bari it was decided it would be best to drop me off with all the bags at the hotel we’re staying at tonight and for Stephen and the girls to drop off the car and get their check in sorted at the airport.

And our luck turned for the better because when I was checking in to the Parco dei Principi hotel, the front desk clerk offered to up grade us to the penthouse suite!! For no extra cost!!! And as I was loading up the luggage cart to head up to our suite, Stephen texted me that the rental car was successfully dropped off smoothly and there were no late drop off fees. Awesome!

The suite was amazing, it had 3 massive bedrooms, a dining room, living room (with a treadmill?), a massive outdoor terrace and a sauna!

However, when Stephen arrived back to the hotel, the staff at the airport were not able to check in the girls, and he was told “we better figure this out soon with Air Canada because the flight is oversold”. F*$k!

So we were unsuccessful in getting through to Air Canada phone numbers, and then Stephen had the brilliant idea to use Microsoft Teams to make the call, and we were finally able to successful connect the call. After about 45 minutes with an AC agent, she was able to get the girls checked in, and we could relax for the rest of the night.

We decided that after looking on google maps, there wasn’t a whole lot of restaurant options nearby, so we decided to order room service for dinner.

Saturday, May 31

Our flight out of Bari is at 6am, so we are up EARLY and took the shuttle van to the airport.

Check in went smoothly and we even had time to do a little wine shopping at the duty free store before we had to board our flight to Munich. We were able to find Macy’s favourite sparkling rosè for under 10 euros!

Stephen and I found out at the gate in Munich when we were boarding that we had successfully been upgraded to business class for our flight from Munich to Toronto, so we were super pumped about that!

And just like that, another wonderful family vacation is in the books. We loved Puglia, it’s an incredible place to visit. I hope we will have more opportunities to explore Italy in the future. Until next time xo