Books, Arts & Manners: At the Heel of the Boot

Before I went there last fall, I never knew how wonderful a part of Italy could be, at one and the same time, to a) the general traveler, b) the art historian, c) the lover of prehistoric or barely historic ruins, d) people who adore caverns, e) bathing addicts, f) lovers of quaint buildings, g) gourmets and gourmands, and so on. All this, plus excellent driving roads, modern, air-conditioned hotels with willing and able staffs—in short, I found amenities of every kind in Apulia, the heel of the boot-shaped country that is Italy.

The general traveler will find a place not yet invaded by mass tourism as Florence, Venice, and Rome are. Apulia, once the inaccessible and forgotten part of Italy, where people emigrated from or became bandits, has changed very much indeed since the Fifties, when a great network of motor roads and autostrade, as well as industrial investments from northern Italy, opened up the region. Opened it up to modern life, that is, because Apulia has known more overlords than I care to remember, from the ancient Greeks who colonized it as Magna Graecia, through Romans, Byzantines, Lombards, Franks, Saracens, Normans, Swabians, Turks, French, Spanish, and Bourbons, until Italy was united in 1861. They all left their marks, and almost all the marks are visible to this day. The mysterious and mysteriously named Pelasgians and Oscans are responsible for ruins and dolmens that, to me, look like very ancient, very ruined ruins; the Greeks left wonderful artifacts in the way of vases, jewelry, statuettes, and the like, and the Romans ditto, plus the ruins of the battlefield of Cannae, where they lost badly to Hannibal, sans elephants this time, as far as I could make out.

NH

About the Author

Nika Hazelton

Featured Tags

Before I went there last fall, I never knew how wonderful a part of Italy could be, at one and the same time, to a) the general traveler, b) the art historian, c) the lover of prehistoric or barely historic ruins, d) people who adore caverns, e) bathing addicts, f) lovers of quaint buildings, g) gourmets and gourmands, and so on. All this, plus excellent driving roads, modern, air-conditioned hotels with willing and able staffs—in short, I found amenities of every kind in Apulia, the heel of the boot-shaped country that is Italy.

The general traveler will find a place not yet invaded by mass tourism as Florence, Venice, and Rome are. Apulia, once the inaccessible and forgotten part of Italy, where people emigrated from or became bandits, has changed very much indeed since the Fifties, when a great network of motor roads and autostrade, as well as industrial investments from northern Italy, opened up the region. Opened it up to modern life, that is, because Apulia has known more overlords than I care to remember, from the ancient Greeks who colonized it as Magna Graecia, through Romans, Byzantines, Lombards, Franks, Saracens, Normans, Swabians, Turks, French, Spanish, and Bourbons, until Italy was united in 1861. They all left their marks, and almost all the marks are visible to this day. The mysterious and mysteriously named Pelasgians and Oscans are responsible for ruins and dolmens that, to me, look like very ancient, very ruined ruins; the Greeks left wonderful artifacts in the way of vases, jewelry, statuettes, and the like, and the Romans ditto, plus the ruins of the battlefield of Cannae, where they lost badly to Hannibal, sans elephants this time, as far as I could make out.