SPRING IN ITALY

By Larry & Arlene on May 25, 2019 in Blog | 8 comments

SPRING IN ITALY According to the calendar, astronomically, the spring season is supposed to have begun on the 20th of March. It appears even in this time of almost instant, electronic communication, that message has been slow in arriving here in Ascoli. In reality, as of this writing in late May, we are still having a replay of last years’ experience with a reluctant retreat of winter and a very slow arrival of the much anticipated warmer, spring-like weather. At least the botanical realm appears to be on schedule. The trees are in full leaf and brilliant wild flowers decorate the roadsides and the fields. Another traditional feature of springtime is the presence of some yellow pollen traces on our outdoor terrace floor. But that’s what antihistamines were developed to handle. Our regular, rented spot on a sandy beach on the Adriatic is all lined up again for the summer. We had hoped to have gone down there for some early beach days by now, but the slow onset of beach-weather has discouraged that. If the weather pattern will be a repeat of last year, over a short period we will transition from late winter almost instantaneously into early summer. We are ready. The month of May is special in our lives as our wedding anniversary falls on the 21st. This year, we are celebrating our 31st anniversary. As we reported in this Blog, last year for our 30th, we enjoyed two weeks in the south of France. This year, we took a more modest celebratory trip a little closer to home. We went on a three-day holiday, by convenient train, to the south of Italy. We chose a place also on the Adriatic, in the region of Puglia, otherwise described as the heel of the boot of Italy, to explore the ‘White City’ of Ostuni. The town is situated on an elevation about 8 km inland from the Adriatic coast.  As we understand it, the predominance of white on the majority of the buildings is tracible to the period of the Great Plague when applications of Lime were thought to have disinfecting qualities. Added to that, Ostuni was at one-point part of the Magnum Greco, or Greater Greece, with...