OUR TRIP TO TARANTO
Don: Saturday we decided that we needed to travel again. A couple of nearby cities or villages had been recommended to us, but nobody had mentioned visiting Taranto. Taranto is a larger city on the northernmost part of the Gulf of Taranto which leads into the Mediterranean. I think it was the fact that it was on coast and that it was going to take us a little over an hour by train that caused me to suggest that we choose this city as our destination. After all, no matter what the city is like, the train ride would be wonderful and there are always new experiences every time we step outside our trullo.

Trains are such a good means of transportation. They go just about everywhere, but often the connections are a bit of a challenge for foreigners. But we had already gone to Martina Franca and that was the place where we would have to change trains. It cost us 5.8 Euro each for the round trip.

After arriving in Taranto, we had to get a bus into the city center. The central piazza (Via Margharita) was a pleasant place with a gelateria nearby. That was great for me! I ordered chocolate, of course. It had some pieces in it that I assumed might be a wonderful fruit or maybe chocolate chips. Wrong! It was a nasty flavor that I couldn’t stop tasting all afternoon. We walked for many blocks into the Old Town area which is really an island. Guarding the island and the entire city was an ancient castle built around the time Columbus discovered America for the purpose of resisting the Turks. Nearby were ruins from a temple erected about 500 BC. Then we headed back into the interior of the Old Town. It cannot be described or captured in photos. It was dark and forbidding. Narrow, crooked alleyways led through dark passages between ancient buildings. Clothes were drying from second and third story windows. People-sounds came from doorways and what few people were visible were children in the streets. Many of the old and unrestored buildings showed evidence of ancient glory, but were now in disrepair. It felt reasonably safe most of the time, but occasionally we were intimidated by the darkness. In the heart of this part of the city was an amazing church built in the 10th to 12th Century, and now being restored. Outside, a nun was herding children into a nearby building. Three of them told me they spoke only Italian then in a moment said in clear English: “What is your name?” They wanted to hear us speak English.

When we had walked as far as we dared, we headed for the sea and walked beside it into the town center again to find something to eat. It was just getting dark, but not late enough for the restaurantes to open, so we got a sandwich at a little panini (sandwich)/ coffee shop. It was not yet dinner time for the locals, but it was strolling time! Everyone was out on the long and delightful piazza in typical Italian fashion. It was wonderful. At the bus stop to go back to the train station, we were helped by a Sicilian from the Italian Navy who was traveling the world. Then on the train we met a single elderly man from Holland who was going from country to country trading labor on organic farms for room and board so he could travel. If you want to see the world, there is a way. What a rich day it was.

Mary Ann: The long walk through the old part (Centro Storica) of Taranto effected me like no other place ever has. It is impossible to describe, and just as impossible to capture in pictures, but it felt and looked surreal, like something out of the most horrific of Dickens, perhaps like a wasted, bombed-out city after a devastating war. I’ve seen a number of ancient sites and parts of cities that were just as old (X-XVIII century), but this area had a completely different feel about it. To say it was in disrepair is a huge understatement. There was almost no color except dirty grays and browns, the stone of the buildings lay bare where once they had been painted or stuccoed, doors and windows were missing, gloomy, dangerous-looking alleyways spread out from the main street, beckoning wanderers into even more foreboding places. Except for small cars tucked into corners, I would have imagined Don and I had been transported to some ghetto in the Dark Ages, and at some point I fully anticipated rats to scurry across my feet and a cloaked man with a scythe to be lurking in some dark doorway. The one thing that kept me from falling into this imagined state, yet also seemed so bizarre in that setting, was that school children were walking these streets, going home I guess, and almost seemed oblivious to their surroundings. One young teenager even had red dyed hair, and nearly all of them were carrying bright name-brand backpacks. Other than these children, there was almost no one else around, and the only sign of any habitation was laundry waving above us from second and third story windows. This old place was truly a unique experience, one I’m still trying to wrap my mind around. Every time I think I’m getting a handle on the world of Italy, something like this jumps out to surprise me. And that’s what our life is like, here on another continent, across the big sea.