Sunday 7th November.....off to see the sea

The apartment here in Carmiano is part of a very big family home, the house is big not the family although I guess the family could be !!! Grandmother lives on the same level as us and has her many pots of beautiful cyclamen on the patio areas.

A lovely warm sunny day so we headed out to the west coast to Porto Cesareo which is a small holiday resort town. It's a major port for the local fishermen and has quite a substantial fish market, I had to stop chef from buying up a week's supply ! There is a fish shop in our town and he is determind to make up for "lost time".

We couldn't resist sitting in the sunshine with a very pleasant glass of sparkling wine and some people watching.

Can't remember if I have mentioned the "mobile" African street sellers but they are always in the more touristy areas and are a  bit of a pain . On the plus side when they have umbrellas for sale we know from experience it is going to rain !!

The sea shore at Torre S. Isidoro. We had a great walk along here, it seemed very volcanic, it had the same feel (C & E you can invisage this) as the beach at Vik in Iceland. However it is limestone rock, in fact there are grottos farther up the coast very similar to the ones we saw in Portugal. We picked our way across the terrain to the edge.

We love the sea and to watch (and photograph) the waves crashing against the rocks

The wind was quite strong and it became cloudy and a bit chilly after a while... back to the car.

There were forts at intervals along the coast, I didn't bother to photograph as sadly as with most of the European countries we have visited the buildings are covered in graffii and the Italians seem worse than the Greeks for the amount of rubbish everywhere even in the most scenic place...very sad.
Lots of good fresh air and exercise, after a drive down the coast a bit farther we head back for another of "Mammas" homemade pasta sauces. Chef is going to add some more  meat to it as he can't quite get into the Italian way of lots of pasta and a small amount of sauce !!!! We've had a really good day today, it has been a pleasant change to drive out and not have to negotiate winding roads.  The southern part of Italy has been badly flooded from the torrential rain last Tuesday. I think I forgot to mention when we were in the Gargano we headed out on the Tuesday thinking the rain might stop or might be just up on the mountain but after an hour of driving over the mountain in very heavy rain and bad visibility we called it a day and went back to apartment, just as well really as it just got worse all day !! Mamma here says she has never in her life known such torrential rain and for so long....they didn't know the Harris' have this effect (Nashville comes to mind !) It's very flat and agricultural in the south and we guess the earth was still hard packed from the summer months but a lot of the crops are under water and some of the roads are still closed off.