Otranto Italy, a Pearl in Puglia

A gorgeous day in Otranto, on the beach soaking in the beauty of the Adriatic Sea.

As the sun peaked in through the slats of the doorway, it was pretty clear we'd missed sunrise. The alarm was set, but the volume on my cell was turned all the way off so we missed hearing it, which was really disappointing as we really wanted to go catch it. Tomorrow.
After coffee and figuring out the hot water (everything is different it seems), we headed over to the beach for the morning. The first hour or so was very relaxing. The wind was brisk, but the weather was +25, so it still felt warm. I stayed on a chair and enjoyed my book while Cecil went out and wrestled with the waves for the early part of the day.

Cecil making his way out into the sea against the crashing waves!

It wasn't long before the privacy and enjoyment of the surf was interrupted by the men who paced the beach selling their wares. I got bamboozled into buying 5 bracelets and a ring before the morning was up, and although I made the final decision to purchase, I'm a little miffed at the constant intrusion of privacy that led up to that. Tomorrow I will be tougher. We stayed on the beach until noon, then headed back to our apartment to dress for lunch, thinking we'd go to Alimini 1,  where they have a restaurant. When we found that it was closed, we decided to carry on to the Universal restaurant down the road instead.
At first  we could find no one there that spoke any English, so we wrestled with our translation book until we could figure out what to eat. I must have done something right, as I had the best meal I've had since arriving!
After lunch, we continued our search for a mini mart to buy a few groceries. Otranto was completely shut down as was Maglie, so we finally ended up finding a mall in Lecce that was open. Not only did we find beer, wine and groceries, I also found a camera connector for the ipad, which  left me very excited  to look at some of the pics I'd taken!

Waves of the sea crashing against the ancient seawall in Otranto, Italy.

We left the mall thinking it would be a fairly easy drive home, but somehow we were confused about where exactly we'd ended up, and when we finally arrived back at home it was almost 7pm, actually coming back into Otranto from the south of all things! Even with the GPS we were confused! As we finally arrived in Otranto it was obvious there was something exciting happening in town but we were too tired to explore it.
We made our way home for a dinner of dried bread and cheese, took a couple of shots of the sunset, and settled into the apartment with our wine and beer to relax for the evening and get over the busy traveling day.