After a full day sailing the Ionian Sea, this morning we docked in Brindisi, the endpoint of the Via Appia. First, we ventured south to Lecce, a major city in the “boot heel” region of Puglia. Lecce was a significant town in the Roman era, and this continued throughout the Middle Ages. Puglia is a region of wide-open agricultural plains, where olive oil has long been a central component of its economy. Our walk through the sprawling historical center takes us past countless sculptural marvels, mostly carved into the soft local limestone. Today also brought some relief from the heat wave, with some brief morning and afternoon showers.
After lunch aboard Sea Cloud II, we headed west to Ostuni, a town with a vastly different character which is almost uniformly whitewashed. Much smaller in footprint, the old town here is perched atop a hillock on the edge of a long plateau which runs along the coastline, several miles inland from the sea. Safety from piracy and siege engines appears to have been the prime directive.
