Adventures & Misadventures Abroad: Visiting "Greco" villages in Puglia

Monday was a fun day of driving to small villages near our BnB in Martano Italy. We are in the bootheal of Italy. We had hoped it would be a lot warmer, not counting on winds coming all the way from the Balkans, all the way across the water and making us cold. This day wasn't too bad. Tuesday would prove to be a challenge. A lot of the Greek influence still shows up in the culture and architecture of this region. We went to 4-5 little towns that are close together. So driving on small roads and narrow town streets was the challenge. This area is very catholic with lots of churches and it seems must be a lot of devout believers to keep all the churches open and functioning. In the US churches are a separate building with a large parking lot - at least they were where I grew up. Here, even in the small villages they just meld into the architecture of the village.

The architecture can be simple or elaborate. And the detail amazing.

But mostly what has amazed me are the paintings. A lot are by local painters - some are even in the Uffizi gallery in Florence, but most are unknown in the wider world. I love the Byzantine ara. There is so much emotion depicted. These were all taken in a small chapel with a non-descipt exterior. I could have posted about 20 pictures - but I restrained myself.

There was some serendipity on this journey. Twice we stopped at locations only to find they were closed. We thought we had to settle on just taking pictures of the exterior, only to have someone show up a few minutes later to open up the building. This happened at the church above with the Byzantine paintings and at a castle in another small town. The docent at the castle in Corigliano d'Otranto was the most enthusiastic docent I have met. He got so involved in making it an experience for Mike and I as we were the only ones on the tour.