Puglia vacation - Day 4: Ostuni, the beach, and Torre Santa Sabina

While we’ve been staying just outside of Ostuni, we had not really visited the town aside from our dinner the first night we arrived. So today, we decided to explore Ostuni. The city is perched high upon a hilltop with sweeping views of the valley and the sea below. It’s a white-washed town --very Greek looking -- with many cathedrals and churches for such a small community. The kids viewed it as a giant maze. Each white street wound its way around to the next, and it was easy to get lost. We had our hearts set on getting pizza for lunch today (not an easy task in Italy where pizza is generally eaten for dinner) but not only were we unable to find a place serving pizza for lunch, we had a hard time finding a place that was serving lunch at all. Ostuni is a very seasonal town. Extremely popular and crowded in the summertime, the tourists had thinned out considerably and so apparently many of the locals were, themselves, now on vacation.

Even our new friend, Giovanni, was puzzled as he walked with us to try to find a good establishment for lunch. Tired of walking in circles, we finally drove to a “cafeteria” style restaurant. No pizza but everyone was satisfied.

We are not having the best of luck with the weather so far this week. In the mid 60’s with a cool breeze, it hasn’t kept us from doing anything we’ve planned so far…except visit the beach. But today would be our last day in this region of Puglia so we were determined to check out the coast. We found it very rugged and unspoiled. The shoreline is very rocky with small coves offering little sand for a beach. But the action is out on the rocks where the wind was howling, causing the sea to spray ashore. I imagine it’s quite nice in the summer for those seeking a more rustic beach experience. No comfortable lounge chairs or food stalls or any facilities for that matter – just the trees, the rocks and the sea.

With the time change, it is now getting dark by 5pm…that’s a full 2 ½ hours before the earliest dinner is served in Italy. Thankfully, our children were so happy to play with the Boezio dogs. Bianca and Alli were good babysitters while Josh and I took a rest (why weren’t the kids tired?). Still there was time for a movie before dinner.

Our hosts sent us to Torre Santa Sabina for dinner – a seaside village just down the road. The town is one block long with three restaurants and a gelateria. We randomly chose Miramare – the only place right on the water in the harbor. We were their first guests. In fact, by the time we left at 8:45pm, we were still the only guests…and not just at Miramare, we were the only guests in the entire town of Torre Santa Sabina. The other two restaurants were completely empty. So now we can sincerely say we ate pizza in an Italian ghost town.