We left Otranto at about 5:30pm and drove across the Salentine peninsula to the Marina de Mancaversa, the coastal extension of the town of Taviano where our co-authors live. Our plan was to swim at La Spiaggia dei Cavalli in Mancaversa; then, have a pizza at Bella Napoli (the best pizza restaurant in Italy); then, head over to the near-by town of Melissano for the evening’s Festa della Musica in which our co-author, Carlo, and his Guitar Club were performing. We did it all and got back to Otranto about 1:00am in the morning. The drive is about 50 minutes each way and we’ve done it so many times that we now only occasionally get lost.
The swim was glorious, our first this trip in the Ionian Sea—clear warm water with an even saltier buoyancy than at Otranto on the Adriatic side. The pizza at Bella Napoli had evolved to a slightly different style than in past years—crustier, but still memorable. The restaurant’s salame picante is far superior and more picante than that of California’s tired, industrial pepperoni. And finally, at Melissano, we were treated to a lively community gathering of local musicians and their fans: from rock, to ballads, to jazz, to our friend Carlo’s group that offered songs sung by Carlo in English and inspired by poetry from English literature, all accompanied by his group’s four guitars. There were two piazzas, a block apart, each with their own stage and their own throng of fans, families and busy children enjoying the warm summer’s late night entertainment.
The swim was glorious, our first this trip in the Ionian Sea—clear warm water with an even saltier buoyancy than at Otranto on the Adriatic side. The pizza at Bella Napoli had evolved to a slightly different style than in past years—crustier, but still memorable. The restaurant’s salame picante is far superior and more picante than that of California’s tired, industrial pepperoni. And finally, at Melissano, we were treated to a lively community gathering of local musicians and their fans: from rock, to ballads, to jazz, to our friend Carlo’s group that offered songs sung by Carlo in English and inspired by poetry from English literature, all accompanied by his group’s four guitars. There were two piazzas, a block apart, each with their own stage and their own throng of fans, families and busy children enjoying the warm summer’s late night entertainment.
La Spiaggia dei Cavalli at the Marina de Mancaversa (“Beach of the Horses,” where in times past farmers would bring down their work horses for a bath).
The Guitar Club: L to R, Dario Coronese, Flavio D'Ambrosio, Carlo Longo, Antonio Rizzo.