Porto Cesareo in October - La Strea Nature reserve walk

On Sunday morning it’s sunny so we go out quite early in search of fresh fish. We are lucky. Just by the little harbour a young fisherman is just spilling his catch out into trays. There are some lecci, some cefali and some smaller fish as well as a squid. We get a decent sized Leccio, large enough for two portions and take it back to base to leave in the fridge.

Then we drive towards La Strea nature reserve. Google takes us down the only non tarmacked road to get there, and there are a lot of ordinary tarmacked roads to get there! We park and walk around the seaward side where the sea is quite rough and there are rocks. It’s quite windy but milder than the previous days and there’s a little sun too. It’s very pleasant walking in the reserve. There are even some purple flowers. We end up on the track which runs down the centre of the promontory. I’m happy. Not thinking about anything, enjoying the nature, the views of the roughish sea to the left and the ultra-calm lagoon to the right. We get to the end of the promontory where there are two young fisherman who have just caught an enormous (compared to ours!) leccio and we chat a while as they explain the type of fishing they do, which involves moving around on the slippery rocks and with the water at least knee high. It’s an interesting meeting. We walk back along the lagoon side, tiny coves and beaches, clear water and a solitary kite surfer practicing. 

Before going back to the car we look at the tower which we visited two years before on our way back from Gallipoli by car. There are a handful of people around, walking, exploring, a few fishermen. A very pleasant place.

The leccio in the oven with potatoes, cherry tomatoes, aubergines and olives, turns out well. After lunch, we have a rest and then since more rain is forecast later we go for a walk and perhaps inevitably end up back at Dolci Tramonti which we enjoyed so much the previous visit. Again, we have spumoni, which we enjoy, perhaps not quite as much as on the previous occasion. It might be the weather – it’s now spitting with rain and is maybe not ice-cream weather. It stops and we can finish our usual walk along the sea front. On the way back Andrea finds prickly pears….great satisfaction.