I first saw Ostuni on Instagram. I had been following the hashtag #sicily in preparation for that leg of the trip, and somebody posted lots of random Italian pictures tagging them all incorrectly. But it was nice, and I wanted to see it. Hilly old whitewashed town. It reminded me of Chefchaouen in Morocco, where the white was blue.
Puglia, the region where Bari and Ostuni lay, is full of gorgeous towns and villages, many of which seem very interesting to spend time in. I tried for a long time to work out a route where I could see several of them in a kind of circle tour. Train here, bus here. But..
Puglia is a little more rustic than other areas of Italy and, therefore, has a little less "tourist infrastructure." What this means in a practical sense is that I was unable to find trains and buses that would take me from one picturesque town to another in a scenic succession on a Sunday. It meant I would have to pick one town and enjoy it.
So I picked Ostuni.
Quiet walk back to the train station. I had only my day-bag, so it was light work. Said bag is a tote my mother made me with soft fabric patterned with maps and vintage camera illustrations. I stuffed it full of books and lenses, and I liked to imagine this was what she pictured while she was sewing.
Misty pre-dawn light and no sound but my own footsteps. No signs either of last night's revelry. It's a tidy place is Bari. Train station was hopping, though. Folks were aggressive about their chocolate croissants. I chose not to join them. Got my tickets and headed on down. Having finished City of Night, my new companion would be a book of essays on the Egyptian revolution from 2011.
I also practiced saying "old city" in Italian, because, though there wasn't much about Ostuni online (and Puglia wasn't even in my travel guide!), the few things I did find in forums took pains to mention the train station was nowhere near the town center. I would have to ask a taxi driver.
In any case, it was, I think, a nice scene -- me in my pea coat sounding out a phrase with a book in my lap and endless groves of olive trees rolling by, the blue line of the Adriatic a constant companion to the tracks.
Arrived and had the first real confirmation that the tourist infrastructure was underdeveloped - the toilets were free!
No taxis. I asked a guy at the coffee shop the best way to get to the, ah, city, ah... city of old.. ah... and he was like, "ah, cite bianca! you take bus." Where is the bus? "right outside." When does it come? "Every two hours." When was it last here? "You just miss." In that case, I'll have the large coffee, please.
I learned it's called the White City and not the Old City, so I adjusted. Drank my coffee and cleaned my pockets of the various tickets I'd acquired. Organized my euro coins into "useful" and "jetsam," but that only took three or so minutes, and then, miraculously, the bus arrived. I was so excited I called it Cite Blanca instead of Cite Bianca, but the driver worked out what I meant.
I was prepared to wait two hours, but he was there in five minutes. Dear old Bianca Bus. I was the only passenger. Long, winding ride through an industrial area, where the industry seemed to be wood pellets. And then, oh and then (and then), rising up was the Old City, The White City, Blancaburgh itself!
It's a real stunner and looks, charmingly, like something a child would make out of recycling. White boxes all stacked on top of one another all crazy-like. It was one of those things where you don't understand how the locals can get used to how amazing it is. How do they get any work done? Feels like you would just sit and look at it all day in wonder. Yeah, I'll bag up those wood pellets in a moment.. I just.. I just need another look at the city.
Driver was kind about showing me which of the many twisty roads led to the center, and out I was and off I was and up I was. A silent walk up a mild incline with endless homes and offices, all painted white and decorated with colorful shutters and green plants, mostly succulents. It was a tremendously pleasing aesthetic, not quite as severe as Santorini and its white and blue theme, but more... lived in.
Nothing was open. It was as silent as a short story. The path eventually opened into a large square with a tremendous, ornate column, a bishop at the top giving a big old stone holler and waving his staff. A few old men, unable to sleep, were lounging here. I explored slowly and went where whim and chance led me. At one point I lucked upon a tremendous view of the city with the Adriatic shining behind it. Snap snap. It was a real gasper.
For lack of imagination I'll describe most of the experience as being in an "open world" video game. It was just me quietly exploring a large, but contained, labyrinth with a few random NPCs dotted around.
Wandered up and up. It was all homes up here. A few folks were beating carpets or walking small dogs. No one spoke to me, but no one seemed to disapprove of me either. It was laughing thinking about an Italian in Seattle wandering around the suburbs taking pictures of people's front doors. How long before some mom called the cops? I felt very welcome and recognized it for the privilege that it was.
It wasn't on a grid, you just screw around seeing what connects. Sometimes it's a dead end, and it's just you and a cactus. Sometimes, magically, in one pocket of the labyrinth, you find a whole plaza. After a few cul de sacs and some backtracing, I found myself at some sort of Sunday flea market. Totally unexpected. The entire experience was like being in a medina where nobody accosts you. I called the place Clean Medina in my mind.
The flea market was bus, and everybody seemed to know one another. A lot of antique tea sets for sale. A lot of heartbreakingly, heartachingly beautiful old wood work benches and furniture. How dearly I would have loved to have filled a shipping container with it and floated home on top, sipping tea perhaps from an antique set.
A peaceful place, even in the bustle of the market. I was well and truly (pleasantly) lost but found my way back after a chance sighting of the back of the bishop's hat. Shops in the center were opening now, and I bought a magnet at a candy store. A bunch of the closed shops had signs reading "Typical Products" in English, and I cracked up all over the place. I assume it meant, "goods specific to the region," but it looked like the video game hadn't hired a writer, so they just put some placeholder text on the shop signs.
Ordered some gnocchi at a nice little cafe, made nicer by being open. The guy told me it was waaay too early for hot food, that it would maybe be two hours. I said ok, I'll have coffee instead. I had wanted a hot meal, but... when in Puglia. Sat and drank my latte and read about Tahrir Square, a strange disconnect, but it was the book I'd brought. You dance with the partner you arrived with.
A few minutes later, a hot plate of gnocchi arrived at the table, red with sauce. It was like the bus! "Two hours" means "less than ten minutes." Ostuni must be Italian for "under-promise and over-deliver." Delight! I ate it all up. Joined the clean plate club.
After, the cafe owner took me outside, put his hand around my shoulder, and pointed out a "road I must see." I thanked him, paid, got my coat back on and headed down that road.
It lead to a cathedral (which will forever remind me of the Bosnian boy yelling katt-dralla! at me), and there an old woman put the cat in cathedral feeding two fat strays. I loved seeing them eat, their fur patterns in such contrast to the white all around. And then.. it was time to head back to catch the train back to Bari.
I was in a good mood from the gnocchi, so I decided to walk. It had been a long bus ride, but I figured I had time, and maybe I'd get another view of the city to match the gasper. So... I waved farewell to the cats and headed back down.
Will sum this part up by saying: Very long walk. No pedestrian area. Very dangerous. At any moment I could have been run over or struck by an olive cart or fallen in a ditch. It took about ninety minutes, during which I expected to be bitten by a dog, smashed into wood pellets, sold in the flea market, buried under a collapsed stone wall, or tranquilized for trespassing. Several portions involved running across open highway to get behind a steel barrier.
I just kept following the signs for "stazione!" signs meant for cars and hoping I would either get there or get rescued by the cops.
I got there. Didn't really get a cool alternate shot of the city, but at one point I looked up and thought the whole thing would be awesome to project a movie on. The Ostuni Screen.
A guy in the stazione coffee shop bought a stack of scratch-off lottery tickets and tapped his wrist with an unlit cigarette. It was his luck, this tap. It was a regular pattern, the tap and the scratch. An old man lectured some women selling batteries.
The train arrived, and I left Ostuni behind, opened my book and I was in Cairo for an hour. Then home. MIA blasted out of a kebab house. It was 3pm and Bari was awake.
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