170 km into Barletta: another cycling day, another century. If you have followed our travels, you know well that this is not the norm for us - we usually go 80-120 km, and ever since our death marches in Spain we've been making a concerted effort to stop well before sunset. But there it is: we have now spent a week up here in Ceglie Messapica - including the mini-adventure in finding the World Peace Garden - and we feel compelled to make time, especially given the promise of a shower and bed at the end of it. There are few more powerful motivators to a pair of generally tired, hungry, and dirty cyclists...
...but the day starts without cycling, oddly enough for such a long stretch; after breaking the news that we must depart, we have agreed to complete some final minor tasks around the garden before meeting Greg and Fiorella at the office in Barletta for breakfast. We quickly sweep the outside walkways, wash the dogs, and inspect the trees for any reachable walnuts - and then we finish packing our bikes, hop on, and ride off down the gravel-dirt road to the main SP 23 into Ceglie. The dogs run after us, chasing the bikes in full sprint until we finally lose them on the better-paved provincial road; hopefully they find their way back down the labyrinthine lanes safely...
...and we soon find ourselves in Ceglie, walking up the staircase into the office once more. Greg and Fiorella are anxious to hear about the week from our perspective: what did we enjoy? how did we adapt to the calendar? what did we feel was missing? We trade observations and remarks for some time, then head down to a nearby café - just opposite the gas station where seven long days ago we inquired of a confused yet friendly petrol station attendant whether we might use his phone to attempt calling the World Peace Garden, only to get no response - where we polish off the by now familiar Italian breakfast of caffé and pastries. The pastries themselves are quite good; there are local almond sweetbreads and pastries with cream and sour cherry filling. Yum! We share some of our maps over breakfast, explaining our method of travelling without GPS or radio gadgets or most of that nonsense - except for the computer, which has proven invaluable in keeping records of our journey - and of drawing lines on the maps, which we annotate with cute pen diagrams at points of special interest or frustration...
...but the breakfast cannot continue forever; there's biking to be done! We say our goodbyes, wishing them luck with their vision for the World Peace Garden - it is not easy to be self-sustaining, and a week spent in the garden teaches an appreciation for exactly how far modern society is from that. Water, electricity, gas, food, Internet, transportation, flush toilets: the list of conveniences we take for granted is staggering indeed, yet most people never properly reflect upon this...
...we are soon on the road down through Ostuni, the White City. From there, it is down to the coast into Villanova, where we pick up some more of that delectable focaccia and load our snack container with almond cookies in all flavours. We start off towards Bari along the service road next to the autoroute, but are quickly stymied when the service road crosses the autoroute and begins doubling back towards Villanova. With no other option, we must head back and retrace our steps somewhat up the road towards Ostuni; there is a road marked as an "Adriatic cycling route", but even this turns out to end after some 10 km or so. Fortunately, this is enough to get us past the earlier dead end and on to a proper service road that follows the highway up through Monopoli and into Bari. Once we reach Monopoli, a stop for lunch is in order - we stop in this picture-perfect harbour, the white-beige houses up against the north side bright against the stormy background out at sea, and pull out two still-warm slices of mouthwatering focaccia.
Up towards Bari. By the time we reach there, it is 1530 - not late, but not exactly early, and we must spend some time fishing around for an Internet connection so that we can notify our host Gianna of our impending arrival! We ride around the downtown for a few minutes, but no luck; cafés with wifi are near-impossible to find in the south of Italy. At last we locate a network bearing the name of a nearby café, and we head over there to grab some drinks and ask for the password - but they refuse to give it to us; perhaps the network is only for employee use, or perhaps they have some unjustifiable prejudice against the bearded. Whatever the reason, we leave in exasperation and head for the tourist information bureau, where we are informed that yes, there is a café with wifi here, and that it is situated immediately behind the bureau. Indeed it is, and we are able to pass on the message that we will arrive this evening...
...except that of course we must get there first, and it is still another 60 km to Barletta. After a week without cycling, our muscles complain at the renewed effort. To make things worse, it is navigationally treacherous going just out of Bari. The roads are utterly impossible to understand, and the coastal road becomes a major highway that although passable by bike is hardly conducive to cycling. We instead veer up into a nearby development, hoping to avoid the highway, and find ourselves at a dead end after following a bus into a cul-de-sac roundabout. We head the other way down the road, but are stopped by a local who speech-gestures at us in Italian. Seeing as how our comprehension of his increasingly frantic motions is less than perfect, he switches to an odd brand of broken French that consists entirely of "gauche", "droite", and hand motions to indicate anything else of potential importance. Language barrier aside, his intention is clear: we have no choice but to turn back and take the highway for a few kilometres, after which it once again becomes possible to take saner roads. Despite these setbacks, we keep going to Barletta, stopping roughly halfway for a quick roadside bite before continuing on our way...
...and it starts to get dark on our way into Trani, home to an ancient cathedral that is unfortunately closed by the time we reach it. Night falls as we pass through the town, and even with the bright reflective vest and headlamp we still feel as though we might be swept off the road rather unceremoniously at any moment and mashed into a pulp by some caffeine-crazed driver. This doesn't happen, however, and we instead make it safely into Barletta. We transcribed the Google Maps directions to Gianna's place onto our notepad, but unfortunately used the state road numbering scheme to label the roads - and things just do not work that way here, since the roads lack state road signs within city limits. So much for the map; we ask for directions, and are on our way up to Via dei Pini when BAM! we run into the Church in the guise of a massive street procession with priests and families and children and enough general commotion to block the road that we intended to take...so we head over a couple of roads, get out of their way, recover sanity, and locate Gianna's place without much trouble. We are so exhausted that we try the wrong doorbell - there are two buttons marked with the same surname, and one does not appear to work - and, having concluded that they are probably out at the parade, head over to the nearby supermarket (which mercifully is still open!) for some much-needed food...
...and we eat the food, wait a bit, try the button again; still no answer. At this point, we have the bright idea of trying the first button again - success! We make contact, and are soon inside - and it becomes apparent that our trip to the supermarket was superfluous, for they have prepared a full dinner for us. Full is not a word to be taken lightly in Italy; it is a standard feature of Italian hospitality that no guest leaves the table without at least some desire to call the nearest hospital at once and demand they rush over with their finest stomach pump...
...but we make it through the onslaught of food and wine, and are soon passed out fully in our nice warm beds. Tomorrow, we see Barletta; hopefully we will make the train to Venezia...