Ciao! My second week in Sorrento has now come to an end, and I just finished my first class of the day to start this third week. I’m now about halfway done with the program, and the thought of returning home in three short weeks is crazy to me. Classes are going great here, and I already feel like I have learned so much. Each class is about 3 hours long, so on the days when my literature and grammar classes follow each other back-to-back, my brain barely remembers English after 6 straight hours of using only Italian. But that’s exactly what I need in order to improve!
This past weekend, my friend Nick and I took a trip to the Puglia region of Italy (think the heel of the boot) on the Adriatic Coast to visit the costal cities of Bari and Lecce. A few of Nick’s distant cousins live in Bari so we were planning on meeting them for dinner, but unfortunately a misspelled email address prevented that from happening. Although we didn’t get to meet up with them, we had a great time in both cities interacting with the local people.
Bari and Lecce are both beautiful cities with a lot of culture and history. The church pictures below is The Church of Saint Nicholas in Bari, where most of Saint Nicholas’ relics are held. When we visited the church we were able to attend mass and then view Saint Nicholas’ relics. Afterward, we ate dinner in the main piazza in Bari while a live concert took place about one hundred yards away.
On Saturday Nick and I visited the beautiful city of Lecce. It’s about a two hour train ride from Bari so we left around 9 in the morning and planned on spending the entire day in Lecce before leaving at 10 pm. The photo below is the Duomo of Lecce, one of the many beautiful churches found in the city.
As you can see the Baroque architecture is gorgeous, but after spending about 3 hours visiting every church in Lecce we soon realized that making it all the way to 10 pm might be an issue. While architecturally stunning, Lecce was extremely quiet with little to do besides walk around the historic center of town. After a delicious lunch of local cuisine, we had had enough and decided to return to Bari for the night. Once back we decided that we were going to find some seafood, a specialty in the port city of Bari. While we were hoping to find some sea urchin, a mistranslation led to us asking if the restaurant had “street urchin” (an awkward conversation with the waiter to say the least). We then settled on a plate of mixed seafood prepared in the way that the people of Bari prefer, crudo (raw).
The dish consists of raw squid, clams, oysters, and shrimp. While not initially prepared for this level of crudo (the squid still had its beak and ink sac), we finished the entire plate. Located right on the Adriatic Sea, seafood such as this is a staple of Barese cuisine. Although we couldn’t find sea urchin that day, we are still on the hunt. In fact, we found a place in Sorrento known for their sea urchin pasta so we are planning on trying it out this week. Stay tuned for results. Arrivederci!