The Kindness of Strangers

Allora, we picked up our bikes and they gave us a 30 minute overview of our course and how to use our maps - I was surprised to find out that they actually put little yellow arrow stickers along the route on signposts. You can practically navigate the whole day just by keeping an eye out for these stickers. We still had our maps - Nancy used a turn by turn version and I had a general visual overview version- but the yellow arrows provide reassurance that we are going the right way and allow me to make turns if I get ahead of Nancy. See the small arrow on the post?

The day was warm, but actually pretty overcast until about 2 or 3 in the afternoon, so we didn't have the sun beating down on us all day. Small parts of the route were on busier roads, but overall there was very little traffic and we were on little country roads the size of bike paths at home most of the day. The countryside slowly changed from large farms, to smaller vineyards and olive trees, to more residential with small, beautiful buildings or estates. As we got closer to Alberobello, we started to see the trulli style of buildings as well.

We didn't stop in the first little town we passed - Giola del Corre - so we decided to take a little detour into the next town, Putagnano, for some lunch. After climbing a very large hill to reach the town, we realized there was not a single business open - the streets were shuttered and empty. We tried to find somewhere to eat, or at least to buy more water, after 28 miles or so of biking, my water bottles were empty (Nancy's Camelbak was still going though).

We happened to pass a little sweet smelling shop that looked open, so we stopped, hoping it was gelato. It turned out to be a pastry shop and the thought of cookies and chocolate was just not what we were looking for. The shop owner spoke no English, but we tried to ask uhim if any restaurants were open in the town. we couldn't really understand and figured we didn't want to wander around aimlessly anymore so we thanked him and started to leave. But, so sweetly and amazingly, he called us in and poured us giant glasses of cold almond milk and refilled my water bottles. It was just so nice and it was exactly the reenergizing pick me up that we needed. We got back on the main road and finished our last 16 miles in to Alberobello.

Nancy actually wrote a big email about first day - so I'm going to paste in her take on the next post  and let her get us to Alberobello -