Gargano in September 4 Peschici and Baia Manaccora

We spent some time the evening before and also this morning trying to decide on accommodation in Vieste which will be our next stop on Sunday. Finally we are in the car heading for Peschici on a winding road which is the continuation of the 'fast road'. In Peschici parking is a mystery because the stripes on the roads are so old as to be indecipherable, 'no parking' signs are intermittent and ignored by the locals but does that mean we can park too? Eventually we find a large space a little way out of the centre with no stripes of any colour and decide to leave the car there. There is a view of the beach below, but as always in Italy the uniform rows of beach umbrellas invade the landscape and fade the poetry.

It's surprisingly warm in Peschici. Our usual fresh breeze doesn't seem able to penetrate the narrow streets which are clean, white painted and full of little shops for tourists but are somehow closed in upon themselves with few views of the coast. We dutifully go up and down and visit all the historical centre which is monopolised by shops selling nothing special/souvenirs or a combination of the two

and then get an unnecessarily large ricotta which is in the bag and handed to us when actually we were only asking the price, and bread, for lunch and go back to the car in search of somewhere pleasant to picnic.

Jazz refuses to obey Google maps when faced with a dubious narrow road for the second time which doesn't please the Navigator at all but we end up going down a wide perfectly tarmacked road towards Baia di Manaccora where we are extremely lucky to find one of the five (!) free parking spaces available. Baia di Manaccora has some free beach but since there are only five parking spaces after kilometres of no parking signs one wonders how many people actually use it.

Baia di Manaccora would deserve words like spectacular if one arrived on a sunny day in March to find the beach empty but instead there are long lines of mostly empty sun umbrellas and loungers inanely cluttering up the view.

We traipse all along the beach to the free part at the end where we can lean against a stone wall in the shade of the trees of the tourist village behind us. It's an exceedingly pleasant spot. No sun umbrellas in front of us, warm, but the cool breeze has found us again so it's very pleasant. The view is of the biggish waves crashing onto the beach in front of us, an ideal place for a picnic - taralli, simple local bread, our cherry tomatoes and a very large amount of ricotta, but we manage it...

Andrea snoozes and I sit and watch the waves and think about absolutely nothing for once, too lazy and contented even to write this. After we retreat to a Lido for coffee (1.30€ each) and then continue along the coast in search of other beautiful bays.

This proves more difficult than expected since most bays are monopolised by Lidos with no free beach, or if there is free beach, the only parking is exclusively for the Lido, or requires payment. This is off-putting, but the Navigator then suggests another of those uninspiring narrow gravel roads and this time Jazz gets lucky again because turning in there are at least three or four places to park.

It's a relief to get out of the car and we wander down to see the Cala dei Turchi from a distance with two of the typical Trabucchi, 

and Torre Calalunga which has been enclosed in private property. We decide to call it a day and take the coast road back to Foce Varano, stopping at a fine viewpoint for some photos of Peschici, 

which is perhaps more picturesque at a distance than close by, then drive  straight along the seaside after the turn off towards San Menaio, we sneak through Rodi before it gets busy and I have time to prepare the tomato sauce for our pasta before we head out across the road for the sunset.