Gargano Gatti

tortoisetravelling
3 days ago
3 min read

A final summer fling. Of the itinerant, not romantic kind. It is however an unarguable truth that Italy is one of the world's most romantic countries, so the sentiment stands.

With a few final days of annual leave to play with (hello London until January!), I set off from Stansted for a final time this year to join my parents in the south of Italy. The Gargano peninsula more specifically. Northern Puglia. The spur on the boot.

After a hefty delay into Bari, I was scooped up by my airbnb's mother well past midnight. I didn't actually stop to ask her name before hopping into the car but she smiled, looked like a legit nonna and I was tired. Fortunately she didn't turn out to be a mafia stooge and delivered me in one piece to the apartment after chattering away at me in full speed Italian.

The next morning, I hopped on the Puglia Airbus, which took me all the way up the coast to Mattinata, base for the next few days. So much for my conviction that Puglia is impossible without a car! On arrival, we headed straight to the beach for a luxurious swim. The Gargano coastline is aggressively beautiful and I couldn't help but wonder if the Italians knew how lucky they were, to be living in full on summer in a place of such extreme beauty whilst everyone back in the UK was being battered by storms and facing the dreaded Back to School. But I reckon they do. Despite it being September and mid-week, the beaches were speckled with leathery bodies and the bars in the evening were buzzing with adults and children alike.

The next day, we rose early for a speedwalk to the tourist office before breakfast to collect one of the 20 covetable day passes to the coastline's best beach. After a brief, unplanned confrontation with the office's floor by me (I blame the lack of cappuccino, which was swiftly rectified. Either that or nonna had in fact slipped me something the previous night), we collected our paper passes and headed back for a breakfast spent kitten-spotting and attempting to stay upright. Happy to report success on all fronts.

We then had the most magical beach day, which started with a ridiculously stunning descent to a pebbled beach, adorned with stripes of brightly coloured parasols. The 'free beach' turned out to be a one metre wide strip between the two deck-chaired areas belonging to the hotels on the cliff above. But after some sweet talking and bribery, we secured a couple of loungers and a parasol in prime position. We swam through the arch and around the stack, marvelling at the crystal clear water and the azure blue sky above.

From Mattinata, we made a detour to Monte Sant'Angelo, an 11th century town on the southern slopes of Monte Gargano. The day of our visit just so happened to coincide with the 1,500th anniversary of Saint Angelo's apparition in a cave so safe to say it was a busy place! Although he may not have appeared again for us that day, we did see him in bread form which was arguably more impressive. Well, probably not, but it was certainly a showstopper to rival that of the famous GBBO bread lion.

From there we zig zagged down the incredibly tight roads, taking us back down to sea level and along to Vieste, a seaside town north of Mattinata. Think white rocks, pale pink sunsets and smartie-blue sea. Or just skip that and think: heaven on earth.

We spent the next few days marvelling at the sea which was literally right on our doorstep, eating some excellent Italian carbs and swimming in multiple different spots each day. A personal favourite was our swim/walk to the lighthouse-adorned island just opposite the town at low tide. We also took a day trip to Peschici where we made friends with a highly enthusiastic Italian tailor in the fish shop...and met an equally friendly German on the beach who was keen to share his rather intriguing views on the Russian war in Ukraine...