Jeff Barrington's Puglia Connection Blog

A Taste of Puglia at Disneyland

If you’re near Disneyland today, check out the “Fifth Annual Disney’s California Food & Wine Festival” and sample regional foods and wines of Puglia.
Loredana Capone, vice president of the Region of Puglia and Region and assessore for economic development, told La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, “It’s a new way to promote the image of Puglia and its excellent food. Despite the economic downturn worldwide, the sector of food and beverages in Puglia was able to conclude in 2009 with exports growing by 4.5% compared to 2008. We want to do more.”
For details about the festival, visit http://adisneyland.disney.go.com/media/dlr_v0200/en_US/calendar/specialEvents/foodWine/FoodWineDailySchedule2010.pdf.

14 Blue Flags for Puglia’s Beaches

The International Blue Flag Jury has just announced its 2010 Blue Flag awards for beaches in Europe, Morocco, Tunisia and Canada. The International Jury awarded the Blue Flag to 2,884 beaches and 627 marinas in 33 countries. The Blue Flag award is based on environmental education and information; water quality; environmental management; and safety and services. The Blue Flag is awarded only for one season at a time.
The new list includes 14 beaches in Puglia:
Castellaneta ‒ Castellaneta Marina
Castro ‒ Grotta Zinzulusa
Castro ‒ La Sorgente
Ginosa ‒ Lido
Ostuni ‒ Camerini Creta Rossa
Ostuni ‒ Costa Merlata Torre Pozzelle
Ostuni ‒ Lido Morelli Rosa Marina
Polignano a Mare ‒ Cala Fetente
Polignano a Mare ‒ Cala San Giovanni
Rodi Garganico ‒ Spiaggia di Levante
Rodi Garganico ‒ Spiaggia di Ponente
Salve ‒ Marina di Pescoluse
Salve ‒ Posto Vecchio
Salve ‒ Torre Pali
For more information, see http://www.blueflag.org/.

5 Puglia Hotels Featured in Expedia’s 2010 Insiders’ Select Rankings

BELLEVUE, Wash., May 4, 2010 – The online travel agency Expedia.com today unveiled the Expedia 2010 Insiders’ Select results, an annual ranking of the world’s best hotels for quality and value as determined mostly by traveler reviews. Hotels that routinely exceed customer expectations – in their customer service, amenities, competitive pricing and more – see that emphasis reflected in their rankings. And this year, for the first time, Insiders’ Select hotels are searchable during the booking process on Expedia.com, making it simple for travelers to maximize the value of their travel dollars.
Five properties in Puglia made the 2010 list. They are listed by rank, name, score (out of a possible 100), location and quality rating:
61. Risorgimento Resort (99.8), Lecce, 5 stars
1,110. Hotel Sierra Silvana (94.9), Selva di Fasano, 4 stars
1,524. Nicotel Barletta (93), Barletta, 4 stars
1,805. Tenuta Cocevola (91.7), Andria, 4 stars
1,821. Hotel Citta’ Bianca (91.6), Ostuni, 3 stars
The Insiders’ Select program, which debuted in 2007, ranks the top hotels from among more than 123,000 properties offered on Expedia sites internationally. The list is compiled using a mathematical formula that weighs three factors:
• More than one million traveler opinions from reviews submitted by Expedia customers after completing a stay at a hotel booked on Expedia sites. Traveler reviews are the most influential factor in the formula.
• A value rating that compares each property’s average daily rates to similar properties to assess the relative value the hotel offers, making it easy for travelers to identify hotels that deliver an excellent experience at a comparatively good value.
• The expertise of more than 400 Expedia market managers in cities across the globe, who work hand in hand with Expedia’s hotel partners to maximize the value they get from Expedia’s global online travel marketplace.
“Expedia.com travelers are among the most passionate in the world,” said John Morrey, vice president of e-commerce at Expedia Inc. “Every year, we help them book millions upon millions of hotel rooms, in every corner of the world. And in return, they help us pinpoint the hotels that deliver a truly world-class experience. Traveler reviews are a crucial part of the research and booking process for our travelers. We vet each review carefully to confirm that the author actually stayed at the hotel. Then we gather up more than a million of them, tabulate them and share the results with everyone.”
The 2010 list includes properties in 1,022 cities worldwide. Forty percent of Insiders’ Select hotels are in Europe, 30 percent are in the United States and 30 percent are elsewhere in the world. The top ranking went to the Galaxy Iraklio Hotel on Crete. Risorgimento Resort received the top score in Italy. For more information on Insiders’ Select, visit http://www.expedia.com/insidersselect.

A Virtual Tour of Puglia

Explore Puglia via the Italian Government Tourist Board’s English-language tourism video of the region, part of a set of videos highlighting Italy’s 20 regions and principal cities. The four-minute, 59-second video offers an overview of Puglia’s most popular visitor sites:

http://www.italiantourism.com/videoregioniindice.html

Puglia says “no” to drilling for oil off Tremiti Islands

As UNESCO weighs declaring the Tremiti Islands, a major tourism site off Puglia’s Gargano promontory, a protected World Heritage Site, regional and local officials as well as tourism organizations and environmentalists are banding together to oppose any plans to drill for oil there, La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno (http://www.lagazzettadelmezzogiorno.it/) reports. Reportedly, the Ministry of Environment has decided to let an Irish company explore “the seabed off the coast of Gargano (to determine) whether or not there are conditions for installing wells,” La Gazzetta reports. One official told the newspaper, “the people of Tremiti, the province of Foggia and the Region of Puglia will oppose with all their strength to the idea of drilling.”
It would be a shame to give an oil company drilling rights to what La Gazzetta describes as “one of the most important environmental assets of Puglia.” The islands also are among Puglia’s richest tourism assets and their economy is 100% tourism based. Yes, Puglia’s economy could use the boost that oil drilling could potentially generate, but not at the expense of ruining one of Puglia’s most significant natural resources.

Puglia airports affected by volcanic ash cloud

The newspaper of Puglia, La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno (www.lagazzettadelmezzogiorno.it), reports that the cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland that’s already affected air traffic over northern Europe has begun forcing the cancellation of flights into and out of Puglia. The newspaper reports that 39 flights scheduled to depart Puglia today for destinations in northern Italy and other European destinations were canceled. Airports in Milan, Bergamo, Turin, Venice and Bologna were ordered closed through the weekend. Aviation officials said the situation is changing by the hour and they cannot predict how many other flights will be affected or when airline service could return to normal. For updates on this developing situation, see La Gazzetta’s website at www.lagazzettadelmezzogiorno.it.

Historic Find in Puglia

The 2,000-year-old skeleton of a man believed to be of East Asian origin has been unearthed near Bari, the Italian news service ANSA reports. The discovery is significant because, if proven, would mean that Asian people visited Italy far earlier than previously believed. It also focuses even more attention on Puglia’s value in archaeological and historical research, as well as in educational tourism.
Here’s the article from ANSA:
(ANSA) ‒ Rome, Feb. 4, 2010 ‒ Archaeologists have for the first time found evidence that people from the Far East were in Italy during Ancient Roman times.
A Canadian team has dug up a 2,000-year-old male skeleton at an imperial Roman estate in Puglia whose DNA matches those of present-day East Asians. The discovery, if proven, would push back by several hundred years the date of the first direct contact between the West and the East, to more than 1,000 years before Marco Polo’s historic trip to China.
“Our data reveals that some of the inhabitants of Vagnari (near Bari) came from far outside the confines of the Roman Empire,” said team leader Tracy Prowse, professor of anthropology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. “This discovery poses many questions about globalization and human mobility in Roman times,” she said in the Journal of Roman Archaeology. “The tests are only preliminary, but the results are intriguing.”
The analysis of the man’s mitochondrial DNA was unable to establish whether he himself came to ancient Puglia or was descended from Asians already living there, Prowse said. “The man probably lived between the first and second century AD, but we can’t say if he arrived on his own or was the son of people who preceded him.”
Prowse speculated the man was “probably a menial worker or a slave, because in his tomb we only found the food supposed to help him get to the afterlife and, above all, because another tomb was on top of his.”
The anthropologist will present her study, “Investigating population origins and migration on an Imperial Roman Estate at Vagnari, south Italy,” at a conference at Oxford University next month.
The Vagnari estate and necropolis, about seven miles west of Gravina di Puglia, was discovered in 2002 and has so far yielded the remains of 70 people. In Roman times, the area was known for iron-working and producing terracotta tiles, the remains of many of which were found over the tombs. The Ancient Romans are known to have traded with spice merchants from as far away as China, via intermediaries, but it was not thought that East Asians immigrated to Italy.
Copyright © ANSA

Luxury Villa Rentals in Salento

A London-based travel company called The Thinking Traveller Ltd. has begun offering luxury villa rentals and other services for travelers to Puglia. The new operation is an extension of its existing services in Sicily.
According to its website, http://www.thinksicily.com/thinkpuglia.aspx, the company is offering “A rigorous selection of the very best villas on the Salento peninsula in Puglia. The villas in this Think Puglia collection are exclusive to The Thinking Traveller, finally giving our clients the opportunity to experience our award winning service in this fascinating region of Italy.”
Included in its villa program are Villa Elia in Gallipoli and Villa Blanca, La Sarica and Le Antiche Pajare, all in Santa Maria di Leuca on the Salento peninsula’s southernmost tip.

A Nice Plug for Puglia

Puglia’s tourism industry has received a welcome boost from The New York Times, which just published a travel article headlined “The 31 Places to Go in 2010.” (http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/travel/10places.html?pagewanted=1&sq=Gargano&st=cse&scp=1) Number 29 on the list is the Gargano Peninsula in the Province of Foggia. Already famous for the pilgrimage shrines of San Giovanni Rotondo (Padre Pio) and Monte Sant’Angelo (St. Michael the Archangel) and the resort areas of Vieste and Pizzomunno, the area boasts many other features that are attractive to international travelers, according to the article.
Here’s what The Times has to say:
“Far from the madding crowds of Amalfi and Cinque Terre, the Italian peninsula of Gargano sits on the Adriatic and boasts a checklist of summer-perfect Italian holiday options. The offerings are largely a part of the protected Gargano National Park, a swath of terrain encompassing everything from the oak and beech Foresta Umbra to the sheer chalk-colored cliffs and grottoes of the coast’s Caribbean-clear waters to the postcard-worthy whitewashed villages that hug the sea. Twelve nautical miles offshore, accessible by boat and hydrofoil, are the Tremiti Islands, specks of land surrounded by a wealth of sea life and a marine reserve of their own.
“Looking for Romanesque churches and seaside fisherman’s restaurants? Try Peschici and Vieste, larger than fishing villages but cozier than cities, with white walls and medieval centers. How about mountain hiking? Check. Gargano also offers the rarest of luxuries: fabulous food and lodging on the cheap ˗ campsites offer space for mere pocket change, while hotel rooms can be had for 30 to 60 euros a night ($42 to $84 at $1.40 to the euro) in Peschici. If saving on food is wallet-friendly enough, pay a bit more than 100 euros and stay at the Chiusa delle More (www.lachiusadellemore.it), a 16th-century farmhouse in the national park but still only yards from the sea. Meals are locavore, Gargano style, incorporating the farm’s own vegetables and eggs.” ˗ Sarah Wildman (Copyright © The New York Times, www.nytimes.com)
In response to the article, the Region of Puglia’s Tourism Councillor of the Puglia Region, Magda Terrevoli, told the Italian tourism publication Travel Trade Italia: “It is with satisfaction that I have learned of the interest that the Gargano area is stirring up on the American market. We can’t help but be pleased with the promotion that The New York Times is doing for our splendid area, but Gargano deserves this attention because it has a varied, high-quality offer.” According to Terrevoli, all of this “is also the result of tourism policies launched by the Vendola government to develop our region through multiple channels.”

Is Puglia Passé?

Check this out: The January 2010 issue of Condé Nast Traveler magazine suggests that Puglia’s time as a “hot” tourism destination has passed. In its “Word of Mouth” section, the magazine headlines “Italy: The New Dolce Vita” and opens by asking, “Done with Tuscany and Umbria? Discovered Puglia and Sicily? Italy insiders are now heading to Piedmont for a wine, food, and design fix at a reasonable price.”
So does this mean that Puglia is passé? Not for us. However, if you think you’ve “done” Puglia by experiencing the trulli of Alberobello, Castel del Monte, a beach or two, and a few bottles of primitivo-based wine, then by all means, move on. But Puglia has so much more to offer, if you take the time to do some research. One of our goals is to make you aware of some of the lesser-known attractions and activities Puglia offers to discerning travelers.
A side note: We have been experiencing a horrible series of computer problems, mishaps and lost files over the past few months. We apologize for this situation and we are doing what we can do fix this and prevent it from happening again. Please keep watching our site and this blog for updates. Thanks for visiting, and we welcome your comments.