Just 14 kilometers to Gallipoli

The drive from Santa Maria di Leuca to Gallipoli is relatively easy. At least it appears that way on the maps. And yet, as we drove along the coast of Puglia and tried to make our way up to the port town we struggled. Mightily.

Town after town and turn after turn we followed the signs pointing us towards our intended destination. And for about 10 minutes in the middle of the drive we simply could not get any closer than 14 kilometers. I do not know if it is the Italians having fun at the expense of those who don’t know better or just a quirk that comes with trying to navigate across small back-roads around that region. Or maybe there was some strange geographical quirk where a number of roads ran around a radius from town in a manner that doesn’t make much sense. Hard as we tried, we seemed to make little progress in getting any closer to town.

Eventually we made it, though not without quite a bit of laughter and a few choice words muttered about. Once into town we headed straight to the old city and the marina – the more scenic sections.

The marina and seawall are quite lovely to wander around in. And if you head all the way out to the end of the sea wall there’s an awesome view from the top of a navigational marker.

Of course, you have to be willing to climb up onto the navigational marker to get that view.

The rest of the marina is similarly pretty, with typical small fishing vessels tied up along the docks and various fishing nets and other gear accumulated.

And one not so well parked boat.

Gallipoli was fine and definitely worth passing through as we circumnavigated the heel of Italy, but probably not worth going too far out of the way for. I’m sure there were parts we missed; it was getting late and we wanted to be back in Lecce for dinner so we didn’t really dally.

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