What a great day!

After a leisurely morning we were out at 9:15am for some exploring of the little towns around here.  Bonnie made scrambled eggs with cheese on croissants for breakfast.  The only problem is that we have only one big frying pan and it is aluminum or something so no matter what, the eggs stick to the pan.  Fortunately for Bonnie she is the cook and unfortunately for Joe he is the dish washer.  he he.

Our first stop was a coast town called Torre Mare.
Well, it was an angry sea today my friends. It was a clear and sunny day but the winds were at 35 kilometres an hour. Just a mild breeze in Texas

We had cappuccino and hot tea on the waterfront and prepared to drive inland again.

A lot of the smaller highways are lined with beautiful bushes with pretty pink flowers.  They look so nice.  We went into Conversano first.  A typical city with narrow streets between stone walls with doors every few yards along where people live.

We did find some stores but find a lot of them are closed.  We are not sure if it is because it is still early in the season or not.  We strolled the main street and I started my usual cough.  A nice lady came out of the store and gave me a candy to help me and asked if I wanted some water.   I took the candy which helped a lot. What a nice lady.  Actually we have found that most of the Italians are very kind and helpful.

Next we went on to Turi.  The road to Turi is about 10 kilometres and lined with vineyards and olive trees. The tree below has a large trunk but not tall. We are not sure what it is but there are lots of them.

Turi is a prettier town with a lovely main street.  We found a cute shop with lovely little dishes etc.  The clerk also took us down to the basement, deep stone steps to another area with more pretty things.  We asked about restaurants in the area for lunch and she suggested Casa Mariani but found it too hard to describe how to get there and suggested we ask someone on the street.
Well we didn't do that but found a lovely little cafe with only three tables and we both got a panini with ham, mozzarella, tomato, lettuce and mayo.  Joe also had mushrooms but they are called fungi here and that kind of puts me off.  They were delicious and we split a bottle of water.

They also had a nice clean toilette.  Most of the toilettes in places are quite clean.  The total bill was 7.90 euros.  What a great deal.
We headed out of town following our GPS directions and guess what.... I bet you guessed it; didn't we pass Casa Mariani and it looked really nice.  We would have spent a lot more there for lunch though.

Headed to the pool and the walkway to the coast. Apparently they close the walkway at 6:15 each night. Oh well, we will try to get to the waterfront tomorrow if we get back in time.

The picture below is the palm trees in Italy with the very wide trunk.

See y'all tomorrow.