The ruins at the end of Alimini Beach

We've been amazed throughout our tour here at how the tradition of 'siesta' or what I understand is called 'riposo' here, as I think siesta is the Spanish term, is very much alive. Most of the stores, restaurants and shops close down from 2pm until after 5pm, and even here at the resort the quiet please sign is up for the hours of 2:30 to 6:30, although it doesn't seem to matter how noisy you want to be at night! Very different for us from the Canadian Prairies. Makes for a nice quiet time to do writing, as I am today....but a strange thing to get used to if you put off your lunch, or just want to grab something from the grocery.

After the siesta period, we headed down to the beach. There was only one other person down there, a man reading his paper, and the lifeguard who still looked like he was enjoying a siesta himself.  We sat in the sun, I continuing my reading of Mitch Albom's 'The Time Keeper', and enjoyed the sound of the waves while  Cec enjoyed a dip in the water.  A much cooler day than the last, it didn't seem to phase him. 

After a dinner of tomato, mozza, olives and dry bread at our apartment, we headed back down to the beach with my camera and a bottle of wine to enjoy a very gentle sunset.

We headed left down the beach, as far as we could and came across the cornerstone ruins of another old building. Being able to go no farther, we settled there, soaking up the view.

We watched as the coastguard came in very close to the shore, seemingly looking for something. Within minutes, they turned around and headed back to Otranto.  Shortly after that a man in full diving suit came down the beach towards us, carrying his spear gun and the fish he had caught attached to the belt on the back of the suit.   I might have taken a pictures, but the speargun made me a little nervous, so we watched him walk off into the distance. So many things we are just not used to seeing in our day to day life.

When the sun had set, we headed back to the apartment for an early night.  Looking through pictures and memories of our trip to that point, something I saw reminded me of the bells on the churches at Maratea...chiming every hour on the hour, then followed by one higher ding for quarter past the hour, two for half past, three for quarter to, then the next hour. Loved those sounds.