Frozen Surprises and Hot Water Woes: Lecce Adventures
We arrive at our next destination’s train station on Monday evening. Lecce greets us with cold temperatures, elegant Baroque architecture, and silence. Our original plan for the Christmas season was to visit this eastern city in Italy’s Puglia region and take in its famous paper mâché manger scenes, but we ran short of time. Since Greece is only a hop away, we choose to catch it on the return trip instead. The wide, golden sandstone streets of “Florence of the South” gleam in the moonlight as we roll our luggage to our new home for the next week. We overlooked that the Airbnb we had selected is on the top floor of a building without a lift and the steps to the top are steep for carrying heavy bags. Once inside we appreciate that it’s roomy, but there’s a second spiral staircase to the bedroom and there is no half bathroom to make midnight “nature” calls more convenient. Climbing higher still is a rooftop balcony, but with these temperatures, we can’t imagine using it. The radiators exude very little heat.
Our stomachs grumble a reminder that our salads at lunch before boarding the train six hours ago are not enough to take us to the next morning. It’s 9:30pm, but this is Italy. Surely there are loads of restaurants starting to gear up for a dinner crowd. We turn corner after corner and everything is closed up tight, including the selections our host provided for us. Our options are a burger joint or a hideaway selling pizza by the slice with their pies on display under a heat lamp. With very little confidence, we choose the pizza and take their last two pieces. Pepperoni for me and mushroom for Kevin. It meets our expectations, and we head back to call it quits after this long travel day.
It turns out that the heat is controlled by the host and despite the radiators, it is freezing. We scamper to bed and cover ourselves in what fortunately is a warm comforter and doze off anticipating a day of exploration tomorrow.
We awake slowly and hesitate to leave the warmth of the bed. We brace ourselves for the chill downstairs and rush to shower and warm up as soon as possible. Despite our best efforts, we can’t get hot water, so I text the host and wait. Coffee beckons us and eventually we decide that our hygiene is less important than getting java in our systems. Just as we are about to depart, our host responds with a request to try again and as if by magic, the blessed hot water begins to run.
The day is absolutely freezing as we wander to find an early lunch to go with our cups of cappuccino. My meatballs in sauce are good, but Kevin’s panino with smoked black Angus, baby artichokes, tomato, and rocket pesto paired with a side of salty, crunchy, creamy fried potato chunks rocked his world. We need the sustenance because we get back to an apartment not much warmer than the outdoors. We don’t have natural sunlight to warm us up indoors and our host is trying to save money by turning down the thermostat during the day when typically travelers are exploring. I make it clear to her that we are working and will be inside at least half of the time we are here and we need more heat! One of the best things we carry with us is a Gravel travel blanket. It helps, but it’s not ideal for two people. After warming up somewhat, we brave the cold and extreme wind for a tour with archeologist Sara Bianchi so we can learn about the history of this beautiful city. Despite needing to keep our hands in our pockets for warmth and her own frigid fingers, Sara pulls out a booklet and painstakingly shares images and maps that help her story of these famous sites come alive.
Kevin had mistakenly left his warm jacket, the one he intended to bring with us on our travels, in storage. When we were in Palermo in December, he did some casual window shopping but thought we wouldn’t suffer colder weather. Greece was mostly manageable, but Lecce is a different story. His scarf and waterproof biking jacket are no match for the weather, but he sucks it up as best he can. We can’t easily find a grocery store that’s open in the evening, so once again, we struggle to find an open restaurant at the dinner hour and resign ourselves to Andrew’s Burgers. The place is deserted and not at all how we expected the meal to go.
It’s Wednesday and Kevin scurries downstairs and takes a hot shower while I snuggle under the covers to finish Louise Penny’s, “A World of Curiosities.” By the time I’m ready to get started, the water again is icy, and after ten solid minutes, there still is not a drop of warm water. Kevin’s hot water had kicked in with the sound of pump engaging, but the sound eludes us now. Could it be that the host controls the hot water in addition to the heat and only turns on hot water at certain times a day? Is it coincidental that the shower got hot yesterday only after we complained? I text again and try my best to tame my frustration, but an hour goes by without a response.
We pause and remind ourselves that there will be highs and lows everywhere and nothing in our lives today is forever. Hot cappuccino has proven over and over to us that the day ahead always looks brighter once it’s in our systems, so off we go to find some. The host finally responds by sending a technician to investigate, so we scramble to get back in time to greet him. So much for the incorrect assumption that there is a puppet master manipulating our water supply. There’s a broken part that the technician replaces and the host drops us another blanket and adjusts the heat. One more reminder to myself that I shouldn’t be too quick to fill in my own version of events. We bury ourselves under the covers and watch a rerun of Doctor Who at the end of an exhausting, but redeemed, day.
