Pope to Puglia Day 19 Casalbore to Celle di San Vito – 24 km

We are over the Apennines!   The white road led us through fields of effervescent green spring wheat until we crested the last hill where the Tavoliere plain, the breadbasket of Italy, opened before us like a sumptuous banquet stretching to the yet unseen sea.  We are in Puglia, which as a kid I knew as Le Puglie, a term no longer used, where we will be for the next 4 weeks. 

We stopped at a convenient bench for our prosciutto/mozzarella panino and a fine juicy orange where we found a very considerate USB port to charge our phones.  The cammino provides. 

We passed through Greci, a hilltop Arbereshe town where the small Albanese community has lived since the 15^th century.  Arbereshe, an archaic form of Albanian, is still spoken and the street signs are in Italian and Arbereshe.  Aldo, the mayor, told us the Albanians saved Europe from the Ottoman Empire and were invited by the Pope in 1495 to fight the Angevin French who claimed the Kingdom of Naples.  The history of the Italian War between Charles VIII of France and the League of Venice for control of Southern Italy is so convoluted that it defies accounting.  The one memorable outcome was the first known case of syphilis among French troops garrisoned in Naples.

PS: Here are the “Norman Towers Spa” where we stayed last night.

A tour of Greci with the mayor