Geology classes

Oceanography classes

Botany classes

Davidino’s day-care teacher maintains that - in the presence of their children - parents should call a spade a spade. So if they are pointing at a tree, they should not call it ‘a tree’, but ‘oak’ if it is an oak, ‘fir’ if it is a fir, ‘willow’ if it is a willow, and so on.

The same rule applies to anything else. 

And so, Leo, this is a leucanthemum maximum, this is an opuntia ficus-indica (watch out, it stings…)

Orecchiette alle cime di rapa

We could not conclude the reportage of our trip to Salento without a food-related post.

Not ‘orecchiette ai broccoli’, as I erroneously referred to in one of my past posts, but ‘orecchiette alle cime di rapa’ (turnip tops orecchiette) is the local speciality.

Does this picture need any further comment?

Mathilde’s bundle

To be fair, I have to say that Mathilde carries her share as well. Sometimes…

Matteo & Leo a Porto Selvaggio

Mediterraneo

Otranto, Lecce, Gallipoli. Alberobello and the Trulli. The Ionic Coast, the Adriatic coast… There is little to say, in one week we have visited the Salento high and low, far and wide. 

All very nice.

But if we have to pick our favourite place, we choose, without a shadow of a doubt, the Natural Park of Porto Selvaggio.

This is a stretch of rocky coast between Gallipoli and Porto Cesareo on the Ionic Coast of Salento characterized by a thick pine grove and a typical Mediterranean bush, and blessed by crystal clear waters…

If you have ever looked for an image that could represent the Mediterranean, well, that should have been Porto Selvaggio…

Thanks Chiara for the hint…

Grotta Zinzulusa

To the fishermen who saw them from the sea, the stalactites at the entrance of the cave looked as rags, zinzuli in local dialect - thus the name of the cave: Grotta Zinzulusa (Ragamuffin Cave)…

Otranto

The Castle of Otranto, the massive fortress raised in defence of the city. Imposing and gloomy, the natural inspiration of what is considered the first gothic novel in literature, The Caste of Otranto precisely, by Horace Walpole.

Lecce

Discovering an Easter egg...

As for the Christmas tree in December, there is always something almost magic in the excitement of a kid that discovers for the first time something new…

The Kinder Family

It has been a while, and precisely from the end of our Baby Moon, that we haven’t spent a week in a row all together, 24/7, only the three of us, tight tight... 

That’s all we need. Happy like in an advertisement… 

Buona Pasqua, happy Easter, joyeuses Pâques!

The Blues Brothers

She caught the Katy, and left me the mule to ride…
She caught the Katy, and left me the mule to ride…

A few more pictures of our ‘cottage’…

Breakfast on the patio*

Indeed a pity, Marieclaire and Fabio, that you could not join us… 

And after the rain of yesterday, today the weather was gorgeous! 

(*) Yes, what you see on the background is the sea…

Apulia or Scotland?

Today we were caught in a heavy rain.

And while driving along the Litorale, the road that skirts the jagged coastline, we wondered whether we were in Apulia or in Scotland…

At the bottom of the heel

Lo zainetto di Silvietta

I have been waiting this moment since my excursion to the Gran Sasso last August, and today, finally, I could fulfill my little dream: I could finally slip Leonardo in my backpack, and carry him around.

A new phase in my fatherhood blooms today: mountain peaks, do quake, starting from today none of you could sleep easy: whichever of you could be our next target…

(Ps: Thank-you Silvietta for lending us the zainetto).

Foto per le mamme

Lu mari du Salentu

La storia dei trulli - Appendice

In the XVIII and XIX centuries the trulli became legalized, and the farmers started using the mortar to build them, and the know-how of building them ‘a secco’ (dry-stone) progressively got lost. A peasant of Alberobello, the capital of Trulliland, told us that the last person who knew how to build a trullo died in 1975, and with him the art of building trulli has been lost forever.

Today, because buying and restoring a trullo has become extremely fashionable, many young architects ventured themselves in trying to understand the secret of the conical roofs.

But the results are not quite the same…