12/26/22 | Martina Franca, Puglia > Woke up near Ostuni + shifted to Martina Franca... masseria hopping our way around Puglia, tho this place more of a street-level guesthouse in the historic center. Had to deal w/ the chaotic parking, going into a ZTL limited zone + they weren't there so had to call their # + then they showed up + hopped in our car to show us where to park our car on the outskirts of town. Ate lunch at Gaonas (burrata + pasta w/ porcini + black truffles + our bedder-½ had white truffles) then walked most of the way to Locorotondo on La Rotta dei Due Mari (coast-to-coast walk thru cool parts of Puglia) + back... ~10+ miles on the day. Dinner at Garibaldi, had eggplant + ricotta then orchiette w/ rabe, then walked around Martina Franca w/ the hordes of other Italians (Dec 26—Santo Stefano—big holiday for them, was hard to get a rez in a restaurant) looking at the Xmas lights.

Martina Franca

glory-hole bar (covid induced Italians to re-open no-contact wine windows originally made during bubonic plague)

Apulian Xmas tree

Been reading (or trying to read) Reza Negarestani's Cyclonopedia: Complicity With Anonymous Materials... not the best book to read on vacation (if that's what U call this), it's dense, as if an Iranian Deleuze + Guattari wrote a novel about oil, math + the geopolitics of the Middle-East... 95% of it goes in 1 ear + out the other. Maybe it's brilliant to 1% of the world but to us feeble-minded folk seems a lot of high-brow hocus pocus, obfuscating things w/ fancy terms to make it seem like he must mean something deep. The new-age math shit in particular is hand-waving hogwash, we could tell that much. Not that the effect of it isn't intriguing + in light of thRiver meme, some interesting food for thought in regards to the grip oil has on the world. Been thinking about these sorts of things as we travel around Italy, how our car + the gas it consumes controls us (for those complaining about the price of gas in the U.S., we've paid upwards of 2€/liter here). Travelling around eating in restaurants we feel bad about all the waste that is beyond our control (unless we just didn't travel), using a bar of soap for one shower + then what? The sheets + towels, etc. all needing to be washed after 1 day's use (even if U don't even use it), the food waste in restaurants (if they bring a basket of bread we feel inclined to eat every piece just to not waste it), etc... it's decadent for sure.

from Cyclonopedia

anonymous materials found on the roadside in Puglia

12/27> Shifted towards the shore, near the town of Fasano, swanky resort type place w/ pools/spa, etc. along w/ donkeys + goats + other animals. Stopped on the way in a wooded patch to hike + to putter around a few beaches/fishing harbors. Took a swim, layed out in the sun, worked out in a gym, took a steam bath, sauna, etc... spoiling our selves. Speaking of anonymous materials, this borgo (Egnazia) is all about materials—paper, rope, metal, cloth, coral, glass, rocks... nice aesthetic, but the humun service part is all a bit of a racket like an American place, nickel + diming U, U have to valet park + they insist on carrying bags, turning down your room + shutting all the curtains + shutters, etc. when U had it just like U want it... we always want to do as much as possible ourselves + not be doted on, having people "wait" on U or clean up after U makes us uncomfortable. And guess some famous celebs have stayed here b/c seems a lot of ppl seem to be here only to say they slept or ate where the likes of Obama, Madonna, Beckham, Timberlake, etc. stayed or got married. The thing is, this place could be in Vegas or Arizona or wherever + U wouldn't notice... sad that ppl would come here thinking they're seeing Puglia + then never leave the hotel.

fish monger

broccoli rabe + olive trees