Day 2 Ride

June 15:  We had a great ride today of about 40 miles.  But it was not without mishaps, though a number of high points, too. The bad news was our luggage still has not arrived; it is suppose to be here tomorrow by noon, but we have frankly lost all faith in the courier service.  Also, Dennis had two flat tires at the same time which forced him and Mark to repair, but they still arrived back at the hotel minutes after the four of us.  They had a thrilling ride downhill, reaching over 40 km/hr and took a few busier highways than we did.  It was good to see them because we had no idea where they might be if they fixed the tires or even if they could.

In any event, we started the ride about 9:30 am and first went along the seaside to Monopoli. We spent some time walking through the old town, which has narrow, twisting roads and several old cathedrals. We watch some guys unstringing monofilament for making trawl lines for fishing.  It was interesting to see the "appropriate" technology they used - six spools were hung from a line stretched between trees and after combining six strains together, they wound it on two widely-spaced nails pounded into a stone wall.  The young guys were the labor and several older guys managed the effort.

We next rode to Polignano a Mare, which is famous for its coffee speciale-a coffee based drink with some liqueur, gelato, lemon peel, and steamed water that foamed the gelato.  We arrived at the town square as a brass band seated in a bandstand was playing a symphonic suite from Tosca.  We enjoyed our special coffee while listening; the plaza was filled with an audience of mostly old men.  The town also has a narrow canyon leading down to a beach, limestone with terraces, paths and gardens on each side and town buildings built on the top.  We rode across a bridge that spans the canyon and provided a great view of the sea and the people enjoying the water.

We passed a few more smaller seaside towns before attempting to follow our directions and ride up hill to Conversano.  We finally managed to get past the freeway with help from MotionX GPS.  We arrived into Conversano after 1:00 and had a picnic on some shaded steps at the high point.  After lunch we walked a bit around seeing castle towers a couple of grand homes and more narrow, winding streets.

Our ride home was through agricultural countryside, with olive trees, vegetables/herbs (parsley is one example), and nurseries. No too far out of Conversano, the flat tires occurred.  The ride home from there was mostly focused on just getting home and thinking about to assist, which it turned out was unnecessary.  We were all pretty wasted and needed serious rehydration. 

The shower felt great; some used the pool, but we are bathing "suit-less."  Dinner was a short walk out to a pizza parlor on a patio next to the sea and with a nice setting sunset.