My connection is so poor at present I am having difficulty posting even text, so it may take a while for any photos to appear here. Writing this after midnight seems to help - then I'm not competing for bandwidth with every single other person in the hotel.
As we had no excursions today, we did not wake early and didn't appear at breakfast until 9 - a great luxury. It was pouring with rain outside, so there was no reason to get up early anyway. After the unfortunate dinner last night, it was a surprise to find that breakfast was excellent, with a huge range of things including 2 types of focaccia and little squares of omelette with asparagus or tomato, as well as the usual eggs. And the pastries were excellent as well, as was the coffee, which was a welcome surprise after we had been served cups of mud after dinner the previous night.
The skies cleared after breakfast, so we went out to explore the town, making for the historic centre. The town is at the very edge if the Gargano Peninsula, and is surrounded by water. In medieval times, it was frequently attacked by pirates, so it was walled, and many of the walls still exist, except where the buildings were on top of steep cliffs.
As space is limited, the houses are all piled up together in a jumbled mass. The centre is a jumble of fascinating little alleyways with overhanging balconies.
We visited the shell museum, which was both fascinating and informative and wandered through the narrow streets. I've so far resisted buying anything, though there is a lot of jewellery and some very good ceramics, all housed in attractive old buildings.
The streets are all paved with marble, which becomes very slippery in the rain, so walking about can be quite hazardous if it's wet - which is frequently was today. We were fortunate that, shortly after we went out to explore, the sun came out and then I needed my hat and sunglasses.
After we had wandered all over the historic part, we went looking for a lunch time sandwich is the modern Main Street, which is lined with cafés and restaurants.
We sat under an awning to eat, as it was quite hot by then. However, once we had eaten, the rain started again, and soon it was hammering down once more. The canvas of the awning where we were sitting was not entirely water resistant, so after a while, we began to get wet. We put up our umbrellas and one of our group took a photo of us sitting with umbrellas up under the awning which he says is illustrative of exactly what the holiday has been like. He said it was hard to take a photo because the rain was so heavy! What he couldn't photograph was the fact that we even had to move our feet because of the depth of water running down the road or we would have been ankle deep in water again.
Once the rain had slackened off we went back to the hotel to find some dry clothes.
We ate in a local restaurant this evening, which made a change from the hotel. It also meant 4 courses - antipasti, pasta course, main course, dessert. There will have to be a lot of dieting when we get home!
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