Fireworks, friends, beaches & thunderstorms.

Mattinata Beach at our camp.
And this was the quiet season 

We headed back to Montemiletto unexpectedly, having sustained some minor panel damage (perhaps the day we left M), and as Mario (Rico's cousin) is a panel beater\painter it was thought expedient to engage his services now, while timing was

One of the many mortar explosions during the 3 hour seige

still loose, rather than later in the UK. This was also convenient as his workshop is directly under the apartment of Rico's that we use. Easy Easy.The hard part was to get Mario to take payment, but we worked hard to make it happen. I was also able to help paint their twin boys bedroom, so we all got a good deal.
Another week in Montemiletto was not a hardship, the fireworks were still going strong everyday at surrounding villages, there are possibly 10 villages within a 10 km radius, almost running into each other, all having their own Saintly celebrations. The money spent on fireworks must be phenomenal!!!! Mario, Carmelina, and boys took us on a Thursday night at 8:30 for a roadside BBQ in a good viewing spot for Montefalcione's display. It was an experience in that we set up a table and BBQ  on the road side (no curb or footpaths here) with a dozen friends and proceeded to have a late (by our standards) meal then await the display. Dinner was over by 10 and the display reputedly starting at 9:30 but all quiet except for the stream of cars and people  up and down the hill, food stalls etc everywhere on the roadsides, kids everywhere.

A dug out dwelling in Daunian Necropolis

Bill looking gravely into burial cavities 

Then 11.30 it went off, amazing! And we've seen a few now, 20 minutes of stunning, body slamming, eye popping, mega display. Some of our group took it calmly, not even taking up position to watch, then when it was over, no one moved??? Turns out this was the first one of 4 competing displays...... 30 mins later round 2 started and so it went on. Getting home at 2AM.... Talk about being body slammed, we were shattered, deafened, blinded, traumatised. How do the kids manage it, let alone the local animals. It is something else. Carmelina asked us, after we said it was probably the most sustained fireworks we had ever seen, how the "Catolics" celebrated their village saint days in NZ. We were nonplussed. Indeed how do they???. One thing for sure, nothing like this at all !!!!!!
Whilst there on our last night Rico's mother and sister, Bernadette and Sandra, turned up  from Switzerland, for a wedding of a relative. Was good to once more catch up. Always a big affair these Italian weddings taking many days of bride and groom events, nothing as crass as a hen or stag night as we are familiar with. Big family events with open doors at both families houses over the week leading up to the wedding. The couple are shifting into a renovated part of the grooms family home, so son still living under the same roof and bride only shifting across the valley a km away, indeed can still see Mum & Dads house. This is still very normal in the small villages of Italy. It is good that this lifestyle is still attainable in this day and age.

Vieste Old Town

Sea cliffs of Vieste

Vieste Church out on the point

This mechanism keeps property in family hands for countless generations though can cause some confusion down the years as to who owns what? On occasion some one will sell out their part to relative strangers, or parts will be inherited by in laws etc causing much fragmentation of family holdings. There seems to be an awful lot of old housing stock in ruins, and as much partially renovated. Much seems to be renovated but unused, if as a holiday home?? I understand that property is not often moved out of family control so can stay empty for a generation or two, till family fortunes change, and or the families heritage is once again taken up.
The weather has produced huge rolling thunderstorms for 3 consecutive afternoons, They roll around the district sometimes hardly affecting your own locale, often staying hot and sunny, torrential rain a few kms away or perhaps torrential rain at your place. The thunder may last for two hours or more.We have witnessed these storms in several places during our tripping. Always awesome!!! Once more leaving Montemiletto  we crossed Italy to the Adriatic side in search of... well warm water, sun and more chilling.
We are meandering up this coast known for its nice beaches, and good facilities to cater for the crowds, IE lots of lidos, camping and apartments. What we find so amazing is the amount of infrastructure in place that is used for 2, sometimes 3 months and over that time is truly only busy for four weeks over the Italian holiday

Night times the right tme in Italy, every place
comes alive

The seaside fishing village of Peschiera

break when the country does stop for the month of August. We would think that staging the holiday season would work better for the country, the schools are off for the 3 months as are the universities, them supplying many of the staff for the holiday resorts. As we know from last year the shoulder season leaves the areas deserted with only a few foreign tourists taking advantage of the heavily discounted accommodation and meals whilst the beach peddlers and stores are trying to desperately rid themselves of stock. Then the lido are stripped from the beaches and all that is left in these towns are the few residents, truly turning into ghost towns. The cycle kicking off again the following summer.
The Daunians were some of the original inhabitants, about 9C BC on this part of the coast, with little known about them leaving only graves hewn out of the rock in a few places. They predate the Romans and Greeks, only really known from the Greek writings, and some pottery shards. Not much to be said about them except we visited a necropolis, simply an area with many burial holes on top of a hill overlooking the coast. The holes then turned into cisterns with channels cut to collect water for subsequent dwellers who enlargened some of the dugouts and lived there trying to eke a living from the desolate hill top. Interesting but light on detail for the consumer. The timeline of how all the mediteranean cultures overlapped is intriguing, and detailed, and a little beyond what I'm able to keep track off. Still I can't ignore looking into these graves and wondering!!

Trabocchi (Fishing machines) dotted all along this coast

Walked a long beach, an isthmus, with a large lagoon supporting a large mussell industry. Was sad to report the beach was awash with thousands of plastic stockings used to culture the mussells.

Where is everyone??
Broken chair is a sign someone was!

These long beaches are now deserted,
All the chairs & umbrella's will get packed away.

That and the habit of beach users to discard there rubbish as they leave, including all the broken beach chairs umbrellas and toys, despite the many signs extorting people to be tidy. This has been dissapointing and oft repeated.
The weather has stayed indifferent now for the week as we continue north with an amazing lightning storm at sea, thunder following, for many hours, finally fining up only to followed by another electrical storm during the night. Looking at our options it might be an idea to zag back to the otherside of the Italian isthmus and chase up better weather.
Time will tell.

Roadside stalls very colourful

Scenic fishing boats on the lagoon

Local fishing the river mouth!