Puglia

I've been in Italy many times already in the past, in the big cities of the North and Center of the country, but for the first time at the end of September of this year, I had the opportunity to visit Puglia, the heel of the Italian boot.

The city of Giudignano, along with the associations of the place and in collaboration with the promoters of tourism activities like the regional agency Puglia Promozione, invited us for a week of meetings and visits to the countryside of the village and to the old farms, that are still producers of valuable oils and wines, like to the old “Protopapa prodotti tipici” masserie, or to the ancient but still running oil mill “D'Aurelio Lanzilao”.

The days of this project were interspersed with pleasant tastings of typical products, such as the one at the "American Bar Brise" to taste the famous apulian cream dessert cream called "pasticciotto", and interesting forays into local culture and traditions, as on the occasion of the debate with the Association Metamorphosis, about the tradition of the "pizzica", a local popoular dance that in recent years had an extraordinary success.

Then we spent a very pleasent day at “The Constantine Foundation” founded in 1982: a center of agricultural activity, craft and education, an oasis of peace surrounded by olive trees, 3 km from the beautiful Otranto, which brings together in one reality weaving, biodynamic agriculture, hospitality and education for the disabled.

In this beautiful land, the young entrapreuners and the new andiministrators are working to develope a new type of tourism that could work all over the year and non only through the summer time, when there is yet a valuable tourist's traffic.