October 2020 Trani: to Trani from Vieste

We leave Vieste first thing on Monday morning, stopping for a couple of photos on the way

and are parking outside the Restituta market in Manfredonia by just after half past eight. The drive, as usual, is amidst splendid scenery and views of the coast on the winding road which leaves me feeling faintly carsick even when driving.

We do find some fish, even if it's Monday and are able to stock up on fruit and vegetables even though not quite as many because we are planning to stay just three nights in Trani. We have to be there for 11.30/12 and are making good time until Google maps suddenly goes red a little way in front of us. I'm sceptical, there's so little traffic around. But there, just past a junction, is the queue. It's impossible to see what has happened further up but no traffic is arriving from the opposite direction and people are getting out of their cars to cross the road and try to see what has happened further down. I do a cautious U-turn with the help of a country lane just behind and we go back to the junction and take an extremely bumpy minor road through the countryside and then get back on the main road. We think nothing more of it until Andrea reads in the news later in the evening that armed bandits had stopped drivers, stolen their cars (4 Audis) and used them to unsuccessfully attack and rob an armed van carrying cigarettes and other things of value. In the process one of the cars caught fire. I'm a little shocked at being so close to such a farwest situation in the middle of what seemed to be peaceful countryside although Andrea is correct when he points out even the doziest bandit is unlikely to envisage stealing a Honda Jazz, nought to sixty in about five minutes to make their getaway. Jazz has many advantages but fast acceleration is not among them.

We arrive unscathed to our splendid Airbnb accommodation in an historical 18th century building right in the centre of Trani with a private enclosed courtyard parking space in which Jazz relaxes with a sigh of relief. The apartment is old style grandiose, 3 metre high ceilings, antique furniture, enormous sofas which sag so much I wonder if I will ever find the motivation to get up, floors older than my grandparents and absolutely everything you could possibly need. By the evening we've decided to stay an extra three nights.

After settling in and marvelling at the surroundings we take a leisurely stroll around Trani, which we have visited twice, in March 2017 and October 2019. The afternoon rain has finally stopped and Trani is left slightly damp, dripping softly but still with the warmth of centuries of sunlight on the pale stone of the buildings and Cathedral. We wander along the port and into the cathedral and stop to marvel as always. Surely one of my absolute favourite places. 

This time I also make it up to the top of the bell-tower, hence completing my knowledge of the cathedral but without great photographic satisfaction due to the anti-pigeon netting and a generous amount of scaffolding.

It's getting dark, so just a little shopping for basics before strolling back to the new base, which is also pleasantly warm, so nice to be in Trani again, all through the lockdown I'd thought of the day there last autumn and thought if we could just set foot in Trani again, that would be good......