This was a delightful holiday based at the Hotel Sierra Silvana in Selva di Fasano. The hotel is situated at the top of a hill in this beautiful, rural part of Italy. In fact there were virtually no shops or bars to head for a stroll.
However, the hotel does have a super, large swimming pool, a good bar where we frequently imbibed in
Aperolspritz one of the local drinks and a big terrace overlooking the nightly illuminated pool. The terrace was the
focus of evening entertainment, music and dancing.
Our friendly group of 26, 18 women and 8 men were led by Silvia our crazy (her own adjective) TM. She was very well organized-her mobile phone number was printed on every piece of information she gave us and she truly was a fun person. To complete the group was our safe bus driver Luciano.
Our rooms were in a separate block to the hotel reception and restaurant. The rooms were over two floors which were connected by a spiral staircase. In fact this hotel's trademark should be "spiral staircases" Although the rooms were large I was disappointed to discover toiletries were scarce, one small soap and a couple of shampoos. No hair conditioner, showergel or bodylotion.
For swimming, we hired for 3 euros, a towel to last us all week.
Breakfast was buffet style, but the evening meals we ordered from a set menu each day. Food was locally sourced and good, Apulia being well known for it's cuisine.
We had two meals in local masserias (farms cum restaurant cum five star resorts) one lunch time and one evening. The evening at the masseria turned out to be the most fun filled evening!
The weather was very hot all week, in fact when we escaped from our guided tours ( I say escaped because although they were good they were very draining in this stifling heat) we invariably headed to the nearest bar or cafe.
During our excursions we travelled through rolling hills dotted with fields of olives separated by English looking dry stone walls to fields of hay bales, harvesting complete, to the rocky coastline.
The hotel was about twenty minutes from the coast and provided a shuttle bus there, if required.
My highlight of the holiday was Matera-I don't think any tour to Apulia should omit Matera. This captivating city was UNESCO listed in 1993 and is set to be the European City of Culture in 2019. It is famous for it's "sassi" cave
dwellings and is situated on one side of a gorge (few caves other side of gorge). However, it wasn't easy to sightsee as it is hilly and there are loads of cobbled steps which can be slippery.
Alberobello was almost as amazing being a town almost completely made up of the little "trulli houses". These houses which are circular with their cone-shaped domes are of antique oriental origin, introduced into Apulia from Asia Minor.
Lecce was the largest town and is a shopper's delight.
The two optional excursions were interesting. Monopoli was my preference, beautiful and on the coast only about 40 minutes from the hotel. It had quaint alleys for us to get lost in, a promenade to saunter along and a small sandy beach so that we could cool our feet in the Adriatic.
To sum up a great holiday, few crowds, off the tourist track but would have preferred going when it was cooler.
Di