Gargano is a peninsula in Italy, at the shore of Adriatic Sea, forming the "spur" on the Italian "boot".
It is home to a massive isolated mountain massif and the ancient Foresta Umbra. The coast boasts numerous beaches and tourist facilities.
Arrival and hotel
It was my absolutely first visit to Italy and it took us almost 22 hours by bus to reach our destination.
We were accommodated at Parco Del Sole, where we stayed for a week. We, besides exploration of the surroundings, also enjoyed the residence's swimming pool and tried creating slow-motion videos:
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There were possibilities of optional excursions - unfortunately at the beginning of our vacation a problem with big waves raised - so I decided to take a trip the next day to see sea caves, it could be the last day of vacation to see them due to the big waves.
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This problem was also blocking another trip - visiting Tremiti islands - I gave it up. Besides the sea caves, we chose to focus on exploring nearby cities and enjoying the sea and big waves on a beach.
Another block for me, for so active person, was the Italian siesta, from 1 PM to 5 PM - I don't understand how they can rest so long :-).
And there can be generally communication difficulties in English, but surprisingly some locals were at least slightly handling the Czech language.
Nature & landscape
The landscape is, surprisingly, mideterrian there, based on limestone bedrock, and features bushes and small trees mainly. Sometimes with stone pines, sometimes with growing prickly pear cactuses and palm trees. Lizards can be spotted crossing roads.
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There is a really nice chain of medieval coast towers on the shore - protecting the land from invaders. Each tower can see the next one. Sometimes they are surrounded by special fishing stations - trabuccos. Some of both, the towers and trabuccos, have been transformed into restaurants.
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Food
We had fresh figs there, not so common to buy in the Czech Republic. Grapes were surprisingly inexpensive at 1 EUR per kilogram only.
And, for sure, we tried some local food, as the Italian kitchen is one of the best kitchens in the world.
The pizza was really thin and really good. Not with a lot of stuff on it like in the Czech Republic.
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And my pasta tasting - I've visited one restaurant where they didn't have any English menu, the only Italian one, where I saw the only one familiar word for me (except pizza) - spaghetti - and I ordered it. I've got spaghetti with mussels :-).
Alcohol
I was again tasting beers - I found three Italian brands only there (Nastro Azzurro, Angelo Poretti and Peroni). And we were tasting a wine every evening - which was generally quite bitter for me.
Towns
Generally, coastal towns are small there, with a lot of small streets, situated higher on a limestone shore.
We've visited:
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Foresta Umbra
On our last day, we took a trip through the Gargano peninsula with Gargano Jones in his Land Rover. He knows the Czech language very well - he was even singing Czech anthem :-)
We were a mixed group of tourists - Czechs and Italians - and we started with a ride through dry limestone riverbed...
... and then directly into the mountains, entering Foresta Umbra - a forest resembling a Central European forest, where even snows sometimes.
The forest features giant pine trees, wrapped in ivy, with fallow deer enclosure in the middle.
With a near small pond, with a swimming turtle in it, and feeding fish.
In the end, we had a quick visit to San Giovanni Rotondo city - the major shrine of Padre Pio.
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