Basil’s full of himself tonight. After a day carting us around the roads of the Gargano Peninsular, which have more twists than an Agatha Christie novel, he finished the day by overtaking a Porsche! Go Basil.

We spent the day driving around the Gargano Peninsular, which is a limestone outcrop jutting out from just above the heel of Italy into the Adriatic. Geologically it is apparently related to Croatia, but somehow it’s ended up stuck to Italy.

The morning was spent driving around the north edge of the the peninsular under leaden skies. The weather did not show the landscape off to its best advantage. We could see that in the summer there would be beautiful beaches backed by olive groves and hills. The appearance was not helped by the hundreds of resorts, hotels and campsites which were all closed for the winter. There was evidence of painting of buildings and trimming of plants ready for the new season, but even the supermarkets were shut.

Gargano Peninsular

The north side is also home to enormous old groves of olive trees. Some of them were underlit with a sea of beautiful yellow flowers, which Sarah discovered were Yellow Oxalis (these reference books come in handy).

Yellow Oxalis under Olive Trees

We stopped for lunch in the beach town of Vieste. Basil was parked up on a vast car park on the sea front which would have hosted hundreds of cars in the summer, but Basil only had one other vehicle for company. The beach was huge and completely empty and Mabel and Melek made the most of it and romped in the sand.

The dogs have a romp

Basil’s feeling lonely in Vieste

Vieste

In the afternoon the sun came out and SatNav plotted a route through the hinterland of the Gargano Peninsular which is home to a mountainous oak forest. As we once again twisted and turned like George Best in a penalty box, we heard the magical sound of cow bells ringing from the hills. We found them grazing on small pastures and even on the edge of the roads.

A second treat was to see several groups of domesticated pigs apparently roaming the forests completely free range. There did not seem to be any fences. At one point we came round a bend to find a sow lying on her side feeding her piglets right by the edge of the road. It must however be hard to scrape a living from farming in such a mountainous forest and many abandoned homes bore witness to this.

Gargano Peninsular

As we descended from the mountains SatNav played a blinder by guiding Basil through the backstreets of a small town where a times there seemed no way Basil’s chunky form would fit through the spaces available. My stress levels soared and I’m sure one day we will get stuck. I am not looking forward to that.

We eventually arrived at our campsite, Lido Scalpi Camping,  just outside Manfredonia after dark (41.555075, 15.8941760). It is difficult to tell what it is like until morning arrives, but I know it has a large beach for dogs to frolic and we had a warm welcome from the owner. One thing going for it is that it only charges €13 under the ACSI scheme, including electricity and wifi. It even has a restaurant open at this time of year. We will stay for a couple of nights, maybe more.