We picked up our car today for the first of our road trips. Max dropped us off at Brindisi airport and we drove to our first stop, Matera. The drive to Matera was only a couple of hours and during the journey we went from the flat olive groves of Puglia to the rolling, green hills of Calabria. Driving into Matera was nothing special, the buildings the usual ugly 70's style architecture which is typical of Italy's larger cities, particularly their "new" towns. ...

This morning, we left our masseria near Brindisi and headed toward Lecce. Max picked us up saying in his best Hugh Grant accent: "Righty-tighty! Are you ready for another food spanking?" On the way we stopped at a winery called Li Velli. Natalie showed us around the winery, which is different because they plant all of their vines in a hexagonal pattern like honeycomb. This way all of the vines get the benefit of the winds for pollination, etc. from any direction...

Max came to pick us up this morning and said to us "Get ready for a food spanking". He wasn't wrong. I wrote in my last blog post about the lunch at the olive oil plantation where the amazing cook, Alma, just kept walking out of the kitchen with dish after dish after dish. We thought the procession of food would never stop. We could easily have skipped dinner after that, but no, not in Puglia. I am going to leave this place with four more chins. At 7:45pm, Car...

After teary goodbyes with Dennis and Linda at Rome Airport, we took a quick 45 minute flight to Bari, and then a one hour drive into the countryside of Puglia in the boot of Italy to a country estate called Masseria Montenapoleone. This ranch-style accommodation is like the garden of Eden, with farm animals, cats and dogs roaming around and cobble-stoned pathways lined with artichoke plants and wild fennel. They grow flowering cacti, remove the leaves and nail...

I need to start this entry by back-tracking a bit. In a previous blog I told of how I tried to trick Dennis into calling our tour guide Alberto, when his real name was Massimo. Unfortunately, this didn't work, but a couple of days later we were travelling on the train to our truffle experience when Linda asked me what the name of the guide for the day was. At first I said Alberto, but Dennis shouted me down for not coming up with something original. So I said, ...