Puglia: Taranto Region

Trulli in Alberobello

l had visited Puglia before on an immigrant ferry from Piraeus along with several hundred Greeks who were escaping the colonels who were in power. It was the final leg of a 4-week tour of Greece and Italy in 1970. Harold Wilson had limited the currency that you could take out of the country to £50. I took £36 to cover food, travel and accommodation. After living for little more than a £1 a day by sleeping on beaches or in rooms and eating frugally, we landed at Brindisi where we spent a night before a mini grand tour of Rome and Florence and onto Milan to watch AC Milan v Lazio at the San Siro before catching a student flight back to Manchester. There had been no time to linger in Puglia.

This time it was different, it was part of maybe our last European exodus before the crazy prospect of Brexit. We had booked five days in the Taranto area and then moved down to the Salento region in the heel of Italy with its spectacular coastline of sandy beaches and rocky cliffs. We spent the first part of the trip north of Taranto staying at an old Masseria that accommodated its guests in a group of Trulli. It was close to the historic town of Martina Franca and not far from the whitewashed splendours of Locorotondo and Trulli of Alberobello. At the fag end of the tourist season, they all provided photogenic insights into the turbulent history of Puglia.

Martina Franca was our nearest town and its historic centre was the ideal location to spend the morning, its fine limestone pavements and narrow alleys opening onto numerous piazzas that inevitably held churches, clock towers, restaurants and artistic street furniture. The rubbish was being collected by electric vehicles and there were few vehicles or motorcycles to disturb the serenity of the old town. The Basilica di San Martino with its impressive Baroque facade stands at the east end of Piazza Plebiscito. The Palazzo Ducale hosts the civic functions and there was an exhibition of the famous Italian theatre and film impresario, Paulo Grassi, that gave clues to the prominence of the town as a cultural centre that holds an opera festival every July.

We moved on to Locorotundo where we had an absolutely fabulous Apulian lunch at the next table to Jennifer Saunders and Ade Edmundson. We were no longer the Young Ones. The treat was completed when the supreme court found Boris Johnson guilty of proroguing parliament without justification. The Puglian sun had arrived as well so we drove the few miles to Alberobello. It has become a major tourist destination to see the remarkable streets of Trulli. They have now been whitewashed and become summer homes to virtually every Milanese lawyer according to the blurb. It was late afternoon and the parties of tourists were still tramping around the streets of Trulli following the flags of their guides. Several Trullo had been opened up so the visitors could see the original interiors before they were gentrified by the second homers.

The Trulli were more impressive in the surrounding agricultural lands where they had been built in the indigenous limestone and linked by limestone stone walls that enclosed olive groves, rough grazing and crops that could withstand the scorching summer sun in the heel of Italy. I was reading a book about the history of Puglia, which was dominated by successive waves of invaders from Turkey, Greece, Spain as well as from other Italian regions. The Masseria had large landholdings and the
workers were impoverished with the owners very often absent landlords. After the Great War, the election of socialist representatives in the region had seen legislation for improved working conditions and wages but these were overturned when the fascists under Mussolini reverted to control on behalf of the wealthy owners of the Masseria and repression of striking workers.

The weather was improving by the day as the rains of September passed and another dry spell began with the day temperature of 27°C perfect for touring and days at the beach. We drove beyond Taranto to the sandy beaches of the Gulf of Taranto, holiday chalets stretched for thirty or so miles, most of which were closed up as were most of the cafes and restaurants. Summer holidays really distort movement patterns, by late September the unbearable heat had given way to temperatures of both air and sea that were optimal. It was only the chaotic traffic that interrupted the relaxed laid back lifestyle. Roads are seldom lined, traffic signs are random and Italian drivers entered junctions and crossroads with no warning. Driving back through Taranto after a day at the beaches was more dangerous than it must have been for the British troops when they landed in 1943 during Operation Slapstick.

We had a final day walking in the Holm Oak forests at Bosco di Planelle. The regional park was surrounded by military sites but the trails through the woods were a perfect foil to the open landscapes and we met a couple of old porcini hunters filling buckets with a variety of funghi, they showed us a tree that was reputedly 2000 years old and directed us to an old Trullo that was becoming a ruin but gave a better perspective of the original living conditions than those we had encountered in Alberobello. We finished the day in the fine historic centre of Martina Franca with a lunch in the well-named Piazza Plebiscito that was throbbing with happy visitors and contented citizens..

Our Masseria near Marrtina Franca

Easr gate to Martina Franca

Clock tower and Basilica di San Martina

Piazza Plebiscito, Martina Franca 

Locorotondo

Locorotondo Octopus

Alberobello Trulli

Unrestored Trulli

Roofscape Alberobello

Our Trullo

Cove at Baie d'Argento

Bosco di Planelle Parco

Wild Cyclamen

Porcini Picker

2000 year old tree

A Duplicitous Cabinet

It is a sign of the times that as we travel through Puglia the Italian and French people we meet are asking why Britain has lost the plot. A French man told us that Boris is as bad as Trump but not as smart, which must be the ultimate insult. “Your government is crazy”is the kindest comments we have heard. Well, when the six most prominent posts in government are filled by Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Sajid Javid, Priti Patel, Dominic Raab and Jacob Rees-Mogg, you have the answer. Their statements can seldom be believed. Their lingua franca is duplicity. 

As we walked through a piazza this afternoon, its name together with the town hall exhibition supporting children sufffering in third world countries reminded us that Europe has much more respect for local democracy and global ambitions. The UK needs to rid itself of our destructive, duplicitous dunderheads. Never have I felt so embarrassed and had less respect for the UK government.

Brexit alert: £350 a year for travel Insurance

Loss of European Health Insurance Card will cost  me £350 per annum

I have reached that age when my bank will no longer provide free travel insurance so I was urged to take out some travel cover. Saga was too expensive, presumably because of the greater probability of claims by the oldies, so I found insurance from another bank that was £68. Then I was told that it would rise if we left the EU and we no longer had the European Health Insurance Card. I was quoted £350 per year. Now where have I heard that figure before?

Farewell boyo, the day that John Humphrys went off air

Final words

Tears were welling as John Humphrys responded to the many tributes from past colleagues and victims as he retired after 32 years presenting the Today programme. I had listened to the programme since the 1960s when it was little more than a talking clock. Jack Di Manio would announce the time and I would run to catch the bus to school. Today was also the morning soundtrack during university days where my interest in current affairs was nurtured, although the World at One was a more enlightening programme with Peter Hobday on the serious stuff and the inestimable Monty Modlin reporting on the quirky aspects of life.

Throughout my working life, the Today programme was tuned into before the 7:00am news and listened to during the journey to work. Brian Redhead and John Timpson along with Sue MacGregor gave the programme a more professional makeover in the late 1970s and 1980s and began to interrogate our politicians. Since 1987 John Humphrys has been the mainstay of the programme, cleaving his way through politicians, introducing important and sensitive issues through interviews with people who have suffered tragedies and focusing his intense energy to speak truth to power. Along with Jim Naughtie, they were the Matchday commentators on current affairs during prime ministers from Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown to Cameron.

He has been much maligned for interrupting his guests and being grumpy. But there is underlying humanity when he interviews ordinary people and no artifice as he seeks to give them a voice. He has been heavily criticised for taking no prisoners but this style was reserved for those in authority. His final day had him interviewing two former prime ministers, Tony Blair and David Cameron whilst fearlessly accusing Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn of being too 'frit' to be interviewed by the programme and held to account. He leaves behind a talented team and they showed their esteem for his remarkable longevity and contribution to broadcasting.

It is probably best to hear him out as he closed his final programme surrounded by his fellow presenters, past and present, his editors and producers as well as the Director-General of the BBC, Lord Hall.
John Humphrys final today programme sign-off

With Brian Redhead 32 years ago

Beinn A' Ghlo

Carn nan Gabhar from Braigh Coire Chruinn-bhalgain

Route from Loch Moraig

I realised that the three munros collectively known as Beinn A' Ghlo had not been featured on the blog, probably because I last climbed them before I started recording all my walks on the munros on this blog in 2010. During my five previous walks on these hills, I had never encountered a day with good visibility. The forecast was reasonable and I was itching to spend some time in the hills so I left early to catch the best of the day. Normally I try to vary the routes by which I climb hills but there is no obvious alternative to the walk around these hills so I headed to the parking place by Loch Moraig beyond the Bridge of Tilt. It was 8:30am but there were already four cars parked. I began the walk about five minutes after a couple of well-equipped young walkers who were leaving as I arrived.

Tuesday, 17 September 2019

Ascent:      1360 metres
Distance:   23 kilometres
Time:         6 hours 50 minutes

Carn Liath                                    975m    1hr   29mins
Braigh Coire Chruinn-bhalgain     1070m     2hrs 43mins
Carn nan Gabhar                        1129m     3hrs 58mins

The skies were clear and visibility excellent in the morning sun and a cool breeze from the north meant it would be good walking conditions although blustery on the summits. It was my first day on the hills for a couple of months although I had run up a local hill on three occasions in the last few weeks. It must have helped because I was walking easily and kept the same distance behind the two young walkers despite making a few stops for photos. After a couple of kilometres on an excellent track, the path to Carn Liath starts by a large wooden shed. It is boggy at first, but a helicopter drop of large bags of rocks has enabled improvements to the path. The path gradually steepens and a new section of white quartzite keeps you above the old boggy path. There is then a quite remarkable stone staircase that climbs for almost 500 metres to a cairn at the end of the summit ridge.

I passed the two walkers who had decided to take a break from the fierce wind at the cairn and proceeded to the summit cairn and nearby trig point. I had kept a good pace, a quicker ascent than the last one ten years ago, and my fitness was better than I had expected. I took photos and had a drink before I was joined by the two walkers who were police officers enjoying a day off duty. We spent 10 minutes in conversation and left together but I didn't want to intrude so I pushed on to allow them to walk together. The first leg was into the strong northerly wind but after a couple of dog legs to Bheinn Mhan, there was protection from the wind by the bulk of Braigh Coire Chruinn-bhalgain, the next Munro. It was a steady climb but again I felt relaxed and skipped up the path. I found some shelter at the summit, after a few minutes I was joined by the police officers and we continued the conversation. I was offered a dram of malt whisky from a hip flask as we examined the skyline to identify the mountains, most of which were in the beat of one of the officers.

We set off together for the traverse over to Carn nan Gabhar. It is an easy walk along the ridge followed by a 200-metre drop to Bealach an Fhiodha and then a 250metre climb to the whaleback of Beinn a' Ghlo with its three cairns, all of which were subjected to mighty winds. Two walkers were departing and another lone walker was being thrown about by the wind as he tried to balance his way across the boulder field to the summit. We continued to the far summit and settled down behind the massive stone cairn to have some lunch topped by another nip of whisky. I went round to the windward side of the cairn to relieve myself and when I returned, the police officers told me that they had thought it was the onset of a shower. I figured that pissing on the police was probably a serious offence but they were good guys and they saw the humour in it. We spent some more time studying the nearby hills of Carn na Righ and Glas Tulaichean. Lochnagar was prominent and I thought Beinn a' Bhuird and Ben Avon were recognisable but this was disputed. I held my tongue but checked it out on returning home and was pleased that I had got it right.

The return gave us the option of going over the top, Airgiod Bheinn, which I have done on all previous visits, or dropping to the bealach and following a path down the side of Allt Bealach an Fhiodhe. We chose the latter to escape the wind and the steep rocky path down the southwest scarp of Airgiod Bheinn. The path became boggy so we dropped down to the burn and crossed to the west side and, after another kilometre, we hit a newly laid path that speeded us down to the track. The lone walker that we had met earlier swaying in the wind on the summit was sitting on a boulder looking content with his day. I opened an exchange with him that soon focused on the sad demise of the UK as it sought to extract itself from the EU.

He was British but had lived for over 30 years in Finland. He came to Scotland twice a year to climb the munros. He had 17 left to compleat his round but had found it difficult this year to rent a car because of his age, 79, so was travelling by train and bus. He had taken a taxi from Blair Atholl to get to the start of the walk. I offered to give him a lift back to the hostel he was staying at in Pitlochry.

We sauntered back over the last three kilometres and he gave me an abstract of his remarkable life story. His father had been killed after volunteering for the army in the Second World War. Because he had died overseas of a disease picked up on duty, his mother had been refused a war pension but she appealed and Lord Denning had overturned the Ministry decision. He was very positive about the Finnish way of life and thought their values were more ethical and caring than seemed apparent in the UK with its devotion to protecting the wealthy.

We arrived at the car park and I bade farewell to my police officer friends who had gone on ahead. The journey to Pitlochry was a continuation of his stories covering the paper industry and blogging as well as discussing his remaining munros and how he was going to approach them. He hoped to climb the In Pinn in the next week. I wished him well and asked for an invite to his final Munro.

Start of the walk at Loch Moraig

Looking back to Loch Moraig from the start of the path

Carn Liath

The start of the path to Carn Liath

Carn Liath summit

Braigh Coire C-b and Carn nan Gabhar from Carn Liath

Braigh Coire C-b on the route from Carn Liath

Looking back to Carn Liath

Final climb up Carn nan Gabhar

Carn nan Gabhar summit in high winds

Descending via Allt Bealach an Fhiodha

The new path back to Loch Moraig

Countdown for Boris

Bullshitter meets his match

What a week for Boris Johnson, the man who would be king. Despite claiming that his negotiations for a deal are going well, some of his own MPs and Cabinet members admit that there has been little or no progress and that it is a sham. The EU confirms that whilst there have been meetings there have been no negotiations to date because there have been no proposals from his government. He loses a vote on MPs taking over control of parliament. Parliament votes that a 'no deal' Brexit should be ruled out so he kicks out 21 conservative MPs who voted for this. He fails to get two thirds of MPs to call an election on 15 October that would allow him to leave without a deal on 31 October. He claims that the opposition parties are 'frit' whereas they do not trust him to carry out the decision of parliament to prevent a no deal. He then confirms that their reasoning is sound by saying he would rather 'die in a ditch' than request an extension to Brexit beyond 31 October.

But worst of all was watching his performance at his first PM questions and when launching his unofficial election campaign in front of police cadets in Wakefield. The man can hardly string a sentence together, he has a tendency to repetitively repeat abusive, childish and sexist remarks about opposition politicians, and contradicts things he has said a day, hour or minutes earlier. He answered no questions from opposition MPs during his first appearance at PM questions and had to be told by opposition leaders that they ask the questions and he is supposed to answer them. Fine chance of that ever happening. No wonder that the PM's minders have prorogued Parliament for five weeks, he really would have been found out, even Jeremy Corbyn scored a technical knockout in the first round.

Could things get any worse for a man whose self-belief goes off the Richter scale? Probably, given his total disregard for democracy, truth and reconciliation.Yet he remains 10% ahead in the polls and is unwilling to accept that Parliament has stopped a 'no deal'. I realise that Scotland is different and that most of my contacts are either baby boomers or millennials but I have yet to meet anyone in the past month who has a positive word to say about him and that includes ex Tory councillors, businesses along with a fairly large but random collection of people whom I have come across in daily activities. Am I living in a bubble? This will not end happily for the country formerly known as the UK.

A Dutch newspaper verdict

Great Trossachs Path

Blairgarry

The Great Trossachs Path is a 30-mile trail between Inversnaid on Loch Lomond and Callander that has been developed in recent years by a number of bodies including the Woodlands Trust and Forestry Commission. The section from Callander to Brig o' Turk runs along a newly constructed path above Loch Venachar just above the cottage where my in-laws lived for 38 years. It had been a regular haunt as we took childeren there at weekends, holidays and in later years visited regularly after we moved only thirteen miles away. At the weekend I would often run there through the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park over steep trails but the final 3 miles from Brig o' Turk was along the busy A821 road and, as traffic became heavier and faster and I became older and slower, I made fewer and fewer runs. I always longed for a decent trail on this final section. It has now been opened as part of the Great Trossachs Path.

Today we made our first foray along the trail starting from Kilmahog, passing above the cottage and finishing at Brig o' Turk where Gregor picked us up having completed his 17-mile Sunday morning training run from Callander to Strathyre and back. We started early and believing that we had plenty of time we climbed to Samson's Putting stone from where we could get a good view westwards along the length of Loch Venachar. The path was steep and muddy after a few days of torrential rain. The bracken was at full height and the rowan trees in full colour. We looked across at the Dunmore Iron Age Fort but decided against adding this to the walk after we encountered a large herd of cattle that were grazing on the trail and not for giving up ground.

Beyond here there is a gate into the lands now owned by the Woodland Trust that have been heavily planted in recent years with rowan, birch, oak, willow, scots pine and other native species. The path winds and undulates through the wild landscape, an abundant supply of blackberries provided flavour for the walk. We looked across the Loch to the sailing club, the Ripple Retreat Centre for Children with Cancer and the Menteith Hills, the skyline that was visible from Blairgarry's lounge. We continued to the Milton Burn, which had been the water supply for Blairgarry until the 1980s, and was harnessed for a micro-hydro-electric scheme 4 years ago.

I walked part of the way down the familiar oak woodland alongside the Milton Burn towards Blairgarry, a pipeline now crosses the burn above the cottage and runs down to the turbine house at the other side of the burn by the main road. We had discussed the scheme in a consultation with the developer and a community councillor and gained assurances that there would be community benefits. I was pleased to observe that there seemed to be no loss in the flow of the burn but there again it had been a wet weekend.

The path climbs quite steeply westwards from the Milton burn to a large water storage tankard then to the high point of the path at 240 metres. The Woodland Trust plantings have matured in this section and there is a fine stand of scots pine on the slopes of Stuc Odhar. This delightful hill is joined by a bealach to Ben Ledi and the two hills used to provide a fine horseshoe walk before the upper reaches of the Milton Burn were  heavily planted with conifers in the 1980s.

We had agreed with Gregor that we would meet him at the Glen Finglas visitor centre in 2 hours. It was a 10-kilometre walk but the additional jaunt up to Samson's Stone meant a total 500 metres of ascent. We were ten minutes behind time as we began the final 150 metres of descent to the visitor centre. Gregor was on the ascent having completed his run in well under 2 hours and driven up from Callander.  I reflected that whilst the new trail would have been useful for the final 3 miles of my run to Blairgarry that the 150 metres of ascent after the hilly 10 miles from Aberfoyle would have not have been the ideal answer to running along the A821. However, we all felt pleased with the morning's exercise and Gregor was doubly delighted to discover that he had earned another three crowns on Strava. He is regularly running 60 miles a week compared to the 30-40 miles a week that I managed during my peak running years.

First glimpse of Loch Venachar

Smpson's putting stone

Rownn berries

Striding out

Stuc Odhar

Ben Ledi

Climbing to the high point of the trail

Loch Venachar and Ben Venue

Scots Pine

Lochs Venachar and Drunkie

Loch Achray and Ben Venue

Blairgarry shoreline on Loch Venachar